Evolution
by Darkgirl5
Summary: Lightning counts on herself and fights by herself. Now fate and a focus have tied her to this ragtag group of people. She seeks her own path to vengeance. Hope chooses to walk that road with her. Tale begins in the Vile Peaks. No pairing.Spoilers and AU.  Cover by Denebtenoh
1. The Vile Peaks to Gapra Whitewood

This story is for entertainment only. The only money I make is from my actual day job, which unfortunately is completely unrelated to Final Fantasy in any way.

-From The Vile Peaks to the Gapra Whitewood-

Her whole body aches. Not the good ache of a thorough workout, but the exhausted, pained kind of ache. One that she knows comes after overtaxing an already battle weary body; the type of ache that speaks of injuries untended. The type of ache that is only a breath from all out pain. She feels the burn in her thighs, her calves. Her right arm is a knot of pain from fingertip to shoulder. She has been walking and fighting and running for so long now...she can't even be certain what day it is anymore.

Lightning rolls her shoulder, hears the telltale click and crunch of bone grating against bone. Subluxated at least, possibly fully dislocated. She grunts her disgust and halts her forward march. That damn PSICOM Tracker got her good in the shoulder trying to disarm her. She's pissed all over again at herself. She'd made an amateur move, all attack and no defense. She'd been relying so much on her superior strength and speed, using rage to fuel her brutality that she'd forgotten to compensate for her weariness. She'd battled her way to Serah, then to the Fal'Cie, and on through Lake Bresha. At the very least, she should have been playing safer and more conservative. But she'd charged right in, hacking and slashing, mind bent on slaughter and left herself wide open to the attack. That Tracker had caught her dead on with a blow that had nearly taken her weapon. Hell, if she were being honest, she'd almost lost her whole arm in that little blunder. If it hadn't been for the kid's intervention...

She turns around, doing a quick sweep for him. She still can't believe he followed her. She's not sure why, what made him choose her company. She's set a relentless pace, charging into battle after battle. At best she has been poor company. At worst, she's been suicidal. With the boy along for the ride, make that homicidal. She is not a paragon of patience on a good day and today is not a good day by any stretch of the definition. At least when Snow had been around, she'd been able to direct all her ire and venom at him. He'd been a perfect target for all her self-loathing turned rage. Now, only Hope remains to bear the brunt of her temper.

Still, here he is. He's taken every barb she's hurled, stood his ground, kept all complaints to himself and just walked. He's stood behind and beside her in at least a dozen skirmishes, and pulled her ass out of the fire at least once. He stands away from her now, avoiding her eyes. Perhaps he thinks that if he draws her attention, she will once again try to send him away. If that is the case, then he is more perceptive than she has credited him thus far.

She recoils a bit at her unkind thoughts. She studies the bent head, the slumped shoulders. This is a young, hurt, frightened boy that she has been trying to ditch out here in the Vile Peaks. Not much more than a child. Years younger than Serah, and she wouldn't let her sister anywhere near this place. She'd kill someone for even thinking about leaving her alone. What the hell is wrong with her?

Her shoulder twinges, reminding her that presently, said shoulder is what is wrong with her. An injury this serious must be tended before she moves on. She holsters her weapon and immediately feels the relief in her right shoulder. She rubs at the shoulder, feels where the joint has slipped. The pain blossoms as she presses along the front of the socket. The bone slips, makes a wet, hollow sound, clicking and snapping when she releases the pressure. Definitely a partial dislocation. It's not her first, but that doesn't stop the pain from shocking and sickening her.

"Damn."

"What's wrong?" Hope asks. His eyes are nailed to the ground, his voice a soft whisper. Staying small, beneath her notice. _Damn._

She debates only a few moments before making a decision. She cannot leave this boy alone. She needs to disabuse him of the notion that she will. She knows he won't believe words. Hell, she wouldn't believe her words at this point. So she needs to show him (and herself) with her actions.

"My shoulder is out." An act of faith and trust. Admitting weakness has never been easy for her.

He meets her eyes and pales. "That's...I mean...what can I do?"

She finds an alcove in the rock face and sits on the ground, back to the stone wall. They need the privacy from enemy eyes as much as she needs the brace. She looks at the pale, shaking boy in front of her and is uncertain that he is going to have the stomach or the strength to pull her arm back into its socket. "I need you to put it back in."

"I...I...um....uh..." he stammers and steps back. She sits and waits. If he can't do this, she's not sure what she's going to do. She can use painkillers and potions, mask the pain, try to work around it. It will not be the first time that she has had to fight injured, or run through pain. But until the injury is corrected, she cannot heal. She can't use any sort of magic on her joint until the bones are back in place. And the longer she leaves the injury untended, the more likely it is that she'll lose full use of her arm. She does her best to keep her face neutral, attempts to mask the fear of becoming an invalid before becoming a Cie'Th.

Hope stops stuttering and retreating, apparently having come to a conclusion. "What do I do?"

She feels relief and apprehension in equal measure. She squashes both, focuses on the practicalities of field medicine rather than the abstracts of 'feelings.' She guides him through the process as best she can. She watches his thin fingers trace the knots of bone, feeling the separation in the joint. "You have to pull the arm up and forward. Try to do it in one smooth motion." She sees his fear, feels her own anxiety ratchet up. He cannot do this if he is afraid. "You can do this," she assures him, waits until he nods. He grasps her arm, one hand around her elbow, one around her wrist. He's become so accustomed to healing her that his magic leaks out now. She feels the cool healing magic wind its way from his fingers through her arm. She relaxes as he twists and yanks. The pain is exquisite, the sound atrocious. Her vision whites out and she's gone.

* * *

"Oh no, oh god, oh no. Light? Lightning? Oh please, oh god." The boy's hysterics bleed through the haze of pain, pulling her back to the surface.

"mmm...."

"Lightning? Please wake up. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. Please get up."

Hope is in a panic and she can't figure out why. Waking up is hard; thinking is harder. She can't clear the cobwebs enough to figure out why she's even sleeping. When had she decided to take a nap? She cracks open an eye and sees Hope's pale face. His pupils are dilated and he looks like he's going to keel over. An adrenaline dump, then, but she can't figure the cause. She's just sitting here and everything is quiet. Had something knocked her out? Was he hurt too?

"I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to make it worse." He's pleading, hands wringing with worry and eyes full of fear.

"What?" She says, the only thought she can formulate.

"Your shoulder." As soon as he mentions her shoulder, memory floods back in. She shakes her head to wake up and rolls the injured shoulder. It feels like it has been crushed. There is a creeping soreness and bruised ache that pounds from her fingertips to her neck. But the sharp agony of the subluxation is gone.

"It's better. Thank you." She starts to move but he presses her back against the wall.

"No wait. Stay! Better? You passed out!"

"Well, having a dislocated joint relocated hurts like a son of a bitch, Hope." She's not trying to be harsh, but the pain has shortened her fuse and flared her temper. Hope flinches from her, but doesn't step away. She tempers her irritation. "You did well. Thank you." He looks like he's calming, accepting her words as truth. He touches the swollen joint and she feels his soothing magic pour over the injury, easing the ache. His hands flutter over and around her, landing briefly only to skitter somewhere else.

"I thought I'd made it worse. Your eyes rolled back and you got so white..."

She stills his hands and pulls him beside her. He comes without resistance. She can feel the tremors that wrack his body and is once more struck by how very young this boy is. She finds herself wishing for a blanket or cloak. He is cold and clammy from shock, and she's probably not much better off. She pulls him against her, drapes her good arm around him. "You did very well, Hope," she reassures. He shutters against her, fighting back tears. Her heart breaks a little as she watches this brave boy fight to be a man. "Very well. Rest now. Go to sleep, okay?"

"What about you?" He sniffles.

"I'll keep watch for a bit." Her exhaustion tells her that it will be a very little bit. He looks at her for a moment before nodding. He settles, head pillowed on her lap, her left arm across him, her right hand resting in the thick platinum of his hair. He sighs, whispers "mom" before finally sleeping.

Her heart stutters. She mumbles, "not remotely," but lets him remain where he is, cradled and safe in his mind. She keeps watch until pain and exhaustion finally claim her.

_She runs and runs, searching for something in a maze of metal hallways. She can't shake the feeling that she is too late. Her heart pounds so hard that the blood in her body reddens her vision, pulls a scarlet veil across the whole landscape. She's not alone, but she can't find her companion either. She stops to search, knows someone should be with her. Feels that he should be at her back, on her heels. _

_She feels heated breath on her neck, spins, finds the space behind her empty. Panic sickens her as she reaches for her holster, comes up empty. She's losing things at an alarming rate--weapons, companions, her focus. She abandons the search for her missing companion, begins running down hallway after hallway, catwalk after catwalk. One door is the same as the next. None of the open anyplace new, or reveal her objective. She breaks into a sprint, gets a flash of platinum out of the corner of her eye that brings her up short. Something pulls her toward that flash, but it's wrong, out of place: a distraction._

_She continues running, spies a bandana and trench coat, bent over another body. _

_Serah! _

_And she knows that this is where her search ends--where all searches end. She tries to yell her sister's name, can't seem to choke it out. She runs but can't get closer. Her head shakes, her body trembles, each in counterpoint, both in denial. She knows what is going to happen even as her sister metamorphoses into diamond-bright crystal again._

_She's too late. Too late to save her, too late to stop it. Snow is there, holding her crystal hand and the rage returns. She's at his side in an instant, her weapon in her hand before she realizes that her rage at herself and her impotence has turned her deadly, and she's raising her weapon, screaming..._

* * *

She wakes to a dead leg and a sore neck. Her shoulder throbs in time with her racing heartbeat. Her dream disturbs her all the more for its truth. She shakes her head to dispel the last of the anger and the dream images. The urge to hurt is difficult to suppress. She deals with her own pain by lashing out at others. It's her way. She sits for a moment, takes her time rolling up the anguish and anger and pushing it as deep as it can go inside her.

Hope sleeps on, head pillowed on her thigh. Her leg is now ice cold from the reduced circulation and she knows she needs to move him before the situation gets worse. Emotions in check, she checks the time, notes that they've been resting for the better part of seven hours. They need to start moving again.

"Hope." She uses her left hand to nudge him, her right to pat at his head.

He snaps awake like she'd thrown freezing water on him. He sits up, face turning a bright shade of scarlet. He starts back-peddling before she cuts him off. "We need to get moving."

"Oh. Okay." His color tones down to a more reasonable shade of pink as she hauls herself to her feet. "How...How's your arm?"

She rolls her shoulders, pulls her weapon, swings it and re-holsters. The joint twinges and complains about the fresh abuse, but doesn't howl in agony. "Much better," she states with a nod. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." He blushes again. _So young_...she banishes the thought. Yesterday he was a boy. Today, he's a warrior.

She gathers up their few supplies and says, "I'll take point."

They march onward, she in the lead and he silent behind her. She spies enemies, eager to charge in and exterminate them, but she pulls herself up. She needs to be mindful now. She's playing hurt today, and rushing to battle with everyone and everything will get her killed. Not to mention the kid.

She casts her thoughts to him, wonders again if she's doing the wrong thing with him. This is no place and no path for a green kid. True, she'd been younger than he when she'd picked up her first weapon. But she'd had no one to care.

She glances back at Hope, and acknowledges finally that neither has he.

Still, in order to serve their better interests, she chooses stealth over brute force, avoiding nearly as many fights as she engages. Despite this effort, she can see the boy tiring. She feels her resolve to keep him with her wither. Perhaps she should send him back. Staying with her, by her side, is a death sentence. Her plan to take the battle to Eden will surely kill her, she knows. In fact, she's counting on that death. That, and taking as many Sanctum bastards with her as she can on her trip to Hell.

Should she really drag this boy to Hell with her?

He trips behind her, falls to the ground. She halts her progress over the bridge, and sighs. This isn't working. She tells him so, argues with him, lays it all out, unpacking all her buried feelings; bringing all her rage and grief to her aid.

The pain from her chest drives her to her knees. _I'm dying._ The thought only vaguely disturbs her. Hope argues with her, tells her she can't leave him. Doesn't he understand that she's going to get him killed? She's having enough problems keeping herself alive right now. To be responsible for him, for his life. It is too much! She clutches her chest, howls at him "You want to get tough? Do it on your own!"

When Odin appears between them, disbelief can't cover the sum of her feelings. How could this have happened? What nightmare brought this situation about? Then Odin focuses on Hope, brings his mighty sword down at the prostrate boy. She yells "look out!" knowing that it will be useless. Hope curls on himself, balls up on the ground. She leaps, willing herself to make it in time; she brings her Edged Carbine to bear.

The blow rattles through her and her injured shoulder screams. The joint cracks as Odin forces his blade down harder. She disregards the shiny agony in her shoulder as she glances at Hope. At least he's not dead...yet. She readies herself to battle this Eidolon, keeps herself between it and the boy as long as possible. The Eidolon swings again, aiming for Hope. Why must it try to hurt him? Why can't it leave the boy alone? Lightning doubles her effort, moves as fast as she ever has before. The blows rain down like meteors, rattling her teeth with every strike. Long seconds of battle have her slowing down just as Odin starts warming up. A hit rattles her, brings her to her knees as her head spins and swims. The Eidolon eyes the boy again, aims its sword. She sees the intent, knows that this strike will be a deathblow. Lightning throws herself in front of him, the long blade catching her across her back. She stumbles, falls, feels blood gush down her back from the deep burn of rent flesh.

The cool relief that settles over her shocks her back into action. Hope stands behind her now, casting every spell he knows to protect and heal. His audacity and nerve have her on her feet parrying each attack, determined now to protect him from the beast that she knows she has unleashed. Odin pounds at her with ruthless efficiency. He (it) is unwavering in the onslaught. She sticks and moves, conjures every natural and unnatural skill she has to keep herself and the boy alive. It is an eternal moment before the Eidolon ceases the attack, yields to her, retreats back into slumber.

The silent aftermath of battle roars. She sways for a moment, stunned and exhausted. This whole experience should have killed her, yet still she stands. Against all odds, she and Hope still live. She should feel triumphant after such a victory. Vindicated. She feels only cold silence. The darkness reaches for her and she grabs it with both hands, welcoming the inviting embrace of emptiness.

* * *

Consciousness comes on slow. It flows and ebbs as she wraps the darkness back around herself. She lingers in the twilight space between here and gone for an endless moment, hoping to cling to peace just a while longer. But the simple act of hoping for peace has forced her to break the surface into the waking world again. She works at peeling open her eyes, feels how herculean this simple task has become, and gives up in favor of waking her dead limbs. After all, as a warrior, her mind has always followed her body.

"You awake?"

The tremble in the voice gets her attention. She focuses on it, uses it to motivate.

"Light?"

"I'm...here." It's the most intelligent thing she can come up with at the moment.

"You okay?"

"..."

"I know. Dumb question." His hand lands on her back, tracing the length of her shoulder blade, sending tendrils of healing magic into her. She sighs in relief.

"I'm alright." She braces her hands on the floor, pushes herself until she's sitting. Vertigo swirls the world around her, blends colors and shapes until her stomach spins in rhythm with her head. She blinks and swallows.

"You have a funny definition of alright," Hope deadpans. She stifles the chuckle, admits that he's right. Her definitions of everything have always been more than a little screwy.

She looks at him, remembers the horror of the mighty Odin bringing his sword to bear on Hope, and she grabs his arms. "What about you? Are you hurt?" She runs her hands over his head, down his arms, searches for injuries.

"I'm okay," he squeaks.

She continues her search, comes up with nothing but a scraped knee. She lets out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. She touches the scrape and bruise, calls her own magic up to ease it away.

"Uh...thanks." He's uncomfortable now, but she feels better, so that's all that matters.

"How long have I been out?"

He rubs the back of his neck. "I'm not sure. Not too long." The answer is cautious. He fears dredging up their earlier interrupted conversation. "Lightning? Am I really getting in your way? I'll do better, I promise." His eyes are glued to the ground.

She knows that she should send him away. If not for her, then for his own safety. That Eidolon nearly killed him. The Eidolon that had come for her, to offer a failing L'Cie peace in death. _She_ almost caused him to die...right before her eyes.

Just like Serah.

She stares at the top of the platinum head and makes a decision. She will do for this boy what she could not for her sister. She will keep him safe for as long as she lives.

"Hope, I was wrong."

"Huh?"

"I was wrong, trying to send you away. I won't do it again. You are not in the way. I shouldn't have said that to you. If you want to stay with me and fight, I'll welcome the help. I'll teach you what I know, help you get stronger. If that's what you still want."

His eyes are wide and hopeful. She tries not to think about the shine in them. "Yes, I want that." She accepts his assurance. He accepts her word.

"Okay. We need to move. We still have a few hours to go before we reach The Gapra Whitewoods, and I want to get there today. We'll rest once we get there."

Wide eyes meet hers and she pulls herself upright. He nods at her, scrambles to stand up. She looks him over, making certain that she hadn't missed anything in her last perusal. He is remarkably uninjured, which is far more than she can say for herself.

She stumbles a bit at first, still dizzy and lightheaded from her most recent bout of unconsciousness. Hope reaches out a steadying hand. She gives herself a moment before taking the lead and trudging onward.

* * *

They reach the Gapra Whitewood with little trouble. Lightning can only feel relieved. She's still rattled by her battle with the Eidolon. She shouldn't have survived that battle. She knows that. She knows she wouldn't have if Hope had not thrown in his lot with her. She glances back at her shadow. He's come a long way in a very short time. She looks at him, sees the wellspring of strength hidden within the small frame. Her early assessments of him had been so wrong. She'd thought him a burden.

"We should be safe here. You rest. I'm going to look around."

Hope settles himself on the ground, back to the rock face behind him. He lets out a relieved sigh. Lightning watches him until he lays down. He's been keeping watch over her more than he should have. She'll have to do better, take care not to get killed. This boy is now her responsibility. She can't run off and be reckless, despite her deepest desires.

She sits across from him, keeping watch for a bit longer. She'll need to sleep some before moving tomorrow. Her injured body demands it from her and she cannot flout it again.

Hope sighs out "mom," while he's sleeping again.

"Not by a long shot," she utters. She's quite a poor substitute for a mother. Look at what a great job she's done looking after her sister, after all.

With derisive thoughts of failure firmly in her mind, Lightning drifts off to sleep.

* * *

_She runs. The familiar route now so foreign. The catwalks are covered in sand. Her ankles ache from running and buckling. It's as if she's moving through molasses. She is searching, but doesn't know what she seeks. Her pulse is a frantic staccato beat in her throat, her temples, her breast. She pants as she runs, spins. _

_Odin rises before her, and she stops, slips in the sand beneath her. The sky is dark, but Cocoon hangs bright and scarred above. How can that be? She is on Cocoon. Isn't she?_

_Odin calls down lightning. It hits her without pain, but burns the sand at her feet. The Eidolon draws its weapon, reminds her of her own. She reaches into her holster, finds an Airwing in place of her Edged Carbine. Panicked, she hurls the weapon, watches as it disintegrates into sand, pours around her. She gropes in the sand, finds that Odin's lightning has transformed the sand at her feet to glass. She picks up the fulgurite, brushes sand from it to stare at a shining crystal tear. _

_Odin still hovers above her, weapon aloft and ready to crash upon her. She clutches the tear, closes her eyes and braces herself for death. _

_"Mom."_

_The word jars her, brings her up. Serah's tear is gone, the Airwing is reformed of lightning glass, slowly disintegrating in her hand. Odin is gone. Serah is gone. Only Hope remains. _

* * *

She snaps to awareness with a speed that compliments her years of training as a soldier. The past few days have taken their toll, eroded her efficiency. She sweeps the landscape with a glance, finds everything quiet and Hope fast asleep. The boy's rhythmic breathing soothes her overtaxed nerves. Her dreams have been dark, though she remembers only impressions of them. Chasing the memories only sends them farther away, spinning off into the forgotten.

Lightning stands up ready to do a sweep of the area, finds her head light and stomach churning. How long has it been since she's eaten? She thinks, realizes that she can't pinpoint a time. That means it's been too long, especially with the way she's burning the candle at both ends. Sleep helped her, but food is necessary now.

And what about Hope? How long since this boy had eaten? Guilt gnaws at her. She's been more than selfish with the relentless pace she's set. She's a soldier, trained to ignore her body if necessary in the face of a mission. But he is only a boy. Until a few days ago, he was in all probability, a child of means. A sheltered and protected child. He was no warrior or scavenger. He is still growing. He must be beyond hungry by now.

"What do I feed a growing boy?" She whispers. True, she had to grow up fast, fend for herself and her sister. But they grew up together. She hadn't been an adult, even if she'd assumed the role. Now, she is an adult. It is her responsibility to look after this boy, make sure he eats and sleeps. What good would protecting him in battle do if he passes out from malnutrition?

Lightning sifts through her pack, searching for rations. They taste awful but they are full of protein and carbohydrates. They probably won't come close to replacing everything he's used in the past few days; still, they are better than the nothing he's been consuming. She can forage later, see if she can come up with berries and nuts. There would be no decent wild meat to be found in the immediate areas; nothing that she would risk unless faced with imminent starvation.

She pulls out four ration bars for Hope, a flask full of water. She'll be sure to make him finish it all before they set off into the Gapra Whitewood. Feeling better now that she's set a plan of action, she wakes Hope.

"No, you should have some too."

He is being difficult. She should have foreseen the possibility.

"I already ate," she lies. He needs the food more. She will be fine for a little while longer.

"Don't lie to me!" he snaps. His tone pulls her up short, raises her hackles. "You were the one who was hurt yesterday. You need this more than I do." He pushes the ration bars back at her, folds his arms across his chest.

Yesterday his defiance would have irritated her. Today, she finds it...endearing. "Very well. I will take one, and you will have the other three." He opens his mouth to argue. "No arguments. " She snatches the bar, unwraps it and begins to chew.

His posture reeks of annoyance and he opens his mouth to continue arguing when his stomach weighs in on the debate. Loudly. Annoyance melts into sheepish embarrassment as he takes the first ration bar and devours it in two bites.

They eat in silence for which she is thankful. Lightning spends the time considering their path through the Gapra Whitewood. When they finish eating, Lightning cleans up their makeshift camp area, wipes any trace of them from existence and sets out on the chosen path.

"I'll take point."

The words pull her from her thoughts, shock her. She considers rejecting the offer outright for a moment before she sees his determination. He is digging his heels in, ready to argue with her. He reminds her so much of...herself at his age. Young, fiery and in way too deep. Oh well. She learned. He will too. "Are you sure you can handle it, Hope?"

"It's not a question of can or can't," he parrots back to her.

"Alright. I've got your back." He smiles a little and starts running a bit, widening the distance.

"Don't get crazy, Hope. Stay focused." _And be careful_, she adds silently.

He hurls himself at the first fiend he sees, slamming his newly learned Blizzard spells into the Thexterons. The beasts fall under his onslaught, feeding his rage. Too much like her for his own good.

He moves through the Whitewood like a mad thing, only slowing when he spots a group of downed PSICOM soldiers. She catches his hand as he reaches for them, stopping him from losing his edge. Taking more innocence in order to keep him alive.

And she can't help but wonder, is she doing the right thing?

* * *

TBC...

Let me know what you think.


	2. From Gapra Whitewood to Palumpolum

Thank you to those who reviewed. I wasn't planning this update this soon. Some dialogue is taken directly from the game. Some of it is paraphrased.

-From the Gapra Whitewood to Palumpolum-

The journey through the Gapra Whitewood takes them a full day and night, with only a few short breaks to catch their breath and rehydrate. Lightning thinks it best to wind their way through the Gapra Whitewood using speed and stealth rather than brute force. Hope complains for a moment before caving to her demands. After all, if he wants her to teach him then he needs to listen to her advice. So he keeps up with her grueling pace through until they reach the maintenance area.

"We're almost through," Lightning says, pointing to the elevator. "That will take us up to the exit."

Hope nods, says, "I have a bad feeling about this."

The first time Hope expressed one of his 'bad feelings,' Lightning ignored him. Two minutes later they ended up in a skirmish with a PSICOM platoon. She now pays attention to his bad feelings figuring that it can't hurt to be cautious.

"Stay sharp," she tells him. She pulls out her Edged Carbine, opens the chamber, reloads and snaps her wrist. The weapon closes with the motion, switches clean and efficient to the blade when she hits the mode button. She'll have to clean, sharpen and oil it when they camp for the night, but it is a well-maintained and superior weapon. It will do what she needs if, and when, she calls on it.

Hope fidgets in place when she throws the switch. The elevator lurches and jerks before starting to move. Lightning keeps one hand on her holstered weapon the whole way, waiting for something to pounce.

They reach the top without incident, step off the elevator platform and make their way to the exit. Half-way there, they are intercepted by one of the Sanctum's newest creations: some sort of flora-fauna hybrid, crossed with a machine. The shape is vaguely reminiscent of a tortoise, but where there should be a domed shell, instead there is something that looks like a giant, upside down, iridescent flower bulb. Lightning stops mid step to take in the beast. _What is this?_ She's never seen anything like it, and she's seen a lot in her military career. She pulls her weapon. Whatever it is, it is in their way. She prepares to attack.

A target's a target.

"This is it." Hope steps out ahead of her wielding his Airwing. "Operation Nora!" He whoops a battle cry and charges the monster.

"Hope!" She is too late. The boy engages the monster, hurling his weapon. It makes contact, rebounds back . The monster is irritated, but not wounded. He may as well spit at it for all the effect the Airwing has on this creature. Except spitting probably wouldn't have made it quite so angry. The pissed off fiend lumbers toward Hope. The giant upside down flower bulb opens, stretches out like helicopter rotors.

Lightning sees the attack before it happens, hurls herself at the boy. She takes him to the ground and lands on him as the giant pinwheel on the monster's back spins. The downdraft kicked up from the whirling blades presses her downward onto Hope's back with bruising intensity, drives the air from her lungs. She shields him with her body, keeps her hands over her head until the wind stops.

She rolls off of him, keeps herself between him and the monstrosity. Weapon drawn, she fires at the beast's head, hopes that it has some sort of brain and that her Edged Carbine has a high enough muzzle velocity to pierce the armor plating that passes for its skull.

Hope still lies on the floor in a daze. She needs to get him up and back. This thing won't miss again and she doubts they'll survive if it clips them, let alone a full on attack. She fires as she moves backward, keeps her eyes on the monster, as she gropes one handed for Hope. She comes up with a handful of his jacket and hauls with all her might. The seam rips and her finger slips through the opening. She uses it to get a better grip and hurls the boy as far as she can get him. He hits the ground hard and yelps. She glances back at him to make sure she hasn't done any damage.

Her distraction costs her. The monster has more than one attack pattern, it seems. She gets a full demonstration of its versatility when it hurls a fireball at her. She throws herself to the left, but the fire catches her cloak, ignites it and scorches her thigh before she can roll over to extinguish the flame. The monster is right on her now, reared back to stomp her. She balls up to make herself as small as possible, fires at the exposed stomach and hopes she can get a kill shot before it lands on her.

A strong Blizzard spell takes the beast by surprise. _Hope!_ Unprepared as it was for the secondary assault, it falls backwards. Lightning regains her feet, presses their advantage. The monster howls at the pain of the ice, tries to transform again and use the remnants of the ice spell to heal itself. Lightning abandons the gun in favor of the blade, hits the monster in its exposed belly. It screams again, kicks at the air in attempt to roll over. It catches Lightning in the ribs with a glancing blow. She keeps her feet, loses half her wind, and redoubles her effort. She feels the numb, cool sensation of healing magic wash through her. She would say thanks, but she has no time as she pulls the blade out of the beast's gut and slits its exposed throat.

The monster lets out a sad groan as it dies under her blade. Lightning would be sickened by it, but she's too busy celebrating survival. She falls to her knees, wraps both hands around her bruised ribs. She's pretty shocked to be alive, whole and relatively unharmed.

"Light?" She isn't sure when Hope made his way over to her, but he has his hands over hers. "Are you alright?"

"Fine." He doesn't call her on the obvious lie, just casts yet another spell to help ease the pain. She gets a look at him, sees the bump where his forehead connected with the ground. It looks painful. "Are you hurt?"

He lifts his hand to his head, runs his thumb and forefinger over the lump. He winces then says, "I'm okay." She touches the bump, calls up her own paltry healing magic and soothes it away.

"Okay," she says as she pulls herself to her feet. "We need to go." She pulls a rag and wipes the animal's blood off her blade before holstering it.

They walk for an hour along the path out of the Gapra Whitewood, then take ten minutes to put some distance between themselves and the trail. They've both seen enough combat for one day, and they need rest.

The spot Lightning chooses is two hundred meters from a stream. Close enough to use the water, but hopefully far enough to keep them in cover if someone else seeks the water. Hope throws himself onto the ground. She eases down beside him, careful not to jar her bruised rib cage. She digs through her pack, pulls out a potion and takes a long pull.

"Light? Don't be mad, alright?"

"Mad?" She can't imagine what he could have done that could make her mad. After all, he'd saved her life again today.

"I know you told me to leave those dead PSICOM soldiers alone. But I grabbed one of their packs." He pulls a small pack out his larger one. She recognizes it immediately as a standard issue field pack for Corps Watchmen. It should contain ration bars, first aid equipment and other useful goods. She holds out her hand for the pack, waits for him to give it to her.

"Good thinking, Hope." She roots through the bag, pulls out a small blanket and two ration bars. "Here, eat this. And take this blanket. Give me your jacket so I can patch it."

"Huh?"

"What? You think soldiers bring seamstresses into battle? I've had to mend my own uniform more times than I can count. You can't leave that hole, or the whole jacket will be ruined and you don't have a spare." Hope doesn't look convinced. "A good soldier knows the value of well maintained gear. Nights get cold when you're sleeping outdoors, and holes in your clothing make them even colder ."

That settles it for him. He takes off his jacket and passes it to her. He pulls the blanket around himself and takes the ration bar she left for him. He eats in silence while she stitches the seam on his jacket back together. She has the hole patched in minutes, but takes another few to go over the garment and seek out any other tears. There aren't any, or any patches, further proof that this boy is a child of means. A child from a lower income family would have second hand clothing. This jacket is not only brand new, but it is of high quality.

When she looks over again, Hope is fast asleep, curled and wrapped in the warm nest of the blanket. She feels a pang for this soft, sheltered child. This is a hell of a way to learn about the cruelty and callousness of life. Everyone learns the lesson, but he is just so young. She would take the burden from him if she could. She knows too well the consequences of a childhood cut short. She folds his jacket and slips it beneath his head in a makeshift pillow. He sighs, mumbles 'mom,' under his breath once again, before settling back to sleep.

Lightning wonders about Nora, about what type of woman she was. Hope is still angry, still blames Snow for her death. Lightning can relate. Grief is an overwhelming emotion. It chokes you, cuts off air and thought. It is far easier to deal with anger. And rage fueled by grief is almost narcotic in its potency. It feeds itself and grows, beats back the hurt. Snow was an excellent outlet for her own grief, so how then can she blame Hope for his own misguided anger?

She combs through his platinum hair, lets her fingers ghost over the bruise on his forehead. She doesn't want this boy to be like her. He has a good heart and soul. She sees his path clearly. Hell, she's walked his path since her own parents died. Who is she to tell him he's wrong for seeking vengeance? How hypocritical can she be? She calls a bit more magic up to her fingers and does her best to erase the bruise. It fades from purple to yellow-green. One more spell should take care of it, but she's too tired to muster another. It can wait until tomorrow.

She pulls her sharpening stone, rag and oil from her pack and sets to give her weapon the treatment it deserves. It has saved her ass...correction, both their asses...more times in the past few days than she can count. The least she can do is give it its proper maintenance.

An hour has the Edged Carbine tip-top and Lightning on the downward slide. She lays down, props her head on her pack, draws her cloak over her like a blanket before falling hard into the arms of oblivion.

* * *

She wakes feeling well rested. It is such an unusual feeling that she worries for a moment before she realizes that she'd had a dreamless sleep. It's the first one she has had since the Purge, for sure. If she's honest with herself, it has been years since she's had a decent rest. She sits up and stretches. She tries to figure what was so different last night. It's possible that her brain was just too exhausted to run around searching for her sister after she'd spent the past few days running around, searching for a way to avenge her sister. She dismisses the line of thought as pointless. What difference does 'why' make?

Hope still sleeps, though it appears that he moved during the night. His blanketed back is pressed against her side, seeking warmth or comfort. Or both.

She stands up and grabs her pack. The movements disturb Hope. She watches him wake in stages, the slow, step by step rise to consciousness of teenagers and civilians everywhere. He grumps as he wakes, shifts, stretches and moans. She watches in amused fascination and is reminded of Serah. Serah was never a morning person. Trying to wake her for school when they were children had taken nearly an hour of poking, prodding and cajoling.

Hope is not even in Serah's league for procrastinating waking, though it takes nearly a half an hour before he's vertical. She spends that time filling all their flasks and canteens with fresh water. She contemplates catching fish before deciding that they don't have the kind of time it would take to clean and prepare it. She settles on the ration bars for now, figures they'll be in Palumpolum soon enough. The city should provide plenty of food.

"You ready?" She asks when she gets back to camp.

"Yeah, sure." He examines the mended seam of his jacket. "Nice work. Thank you."

She nods in acknowledgement, slips two canteens into Hope's pack, gives him a flask to keep in his pocket. He slings it up over his shoulders and lets it settle on his back.

"Too heavy?" He shakes his head, puts a hand to it. "Head still hurt?"

"A little. I can handle it."

She contemplates using a spell but decides against it. She needs to conserve energy for now. No telling what they are going to encounter today. She rustles around her own pack for a painkiller. She breaks it in half, hands one to him. "Here, take this. It'll take the edge off for now."

He draws his flask and takes the pill in one swallow. "Thanks."

"Sure." She slings on her pack. "How far to Palumpolum?"

"If we take the main road, its nearly a three day hike. There are shortcuts that can shave about a day off that, but they'll take us close to the Behemoth graveyard."

"Which means also near nesting grounds, right? Great."

"We don't have to."

"No, its fine. We can handle it if we have to. Still, I'd like to avoid getting into it with a bunch of behemoths." Hope nods at her, cups his head again. "I'll take point."

"We need to travel northeast from the road. The road will wind a lot. Palumpolum is pretty much directly northeast of the Gapra Whitewoods. " Lightning heads to the road, gets her bearings, then takes off in a northeastern direction, Hope hard on her heels.

She sets a brisk, but not brutal, pace. At midday Lightning calls a halt. She figures they've covered between fifteen and sixteen kilometers since they set out. She could use a break. Hope drops on the floor, obviously unused to such grueling marching.

"My feet are killing me," he gripes. When he pulls off his shoes, she sees why. His shoes are all wrong for this type of walking. The terrain is uneven, the ground damp. The wet canvas and thin soles of the shoes have caused blisters on the soles of his feet.

She pulls out ointment and bandages. "Hold still," she says as she treats the blisters. She calls upon the now familiar magic to accelerate the healing of the blisters. Once they disappear she puts the ointment on, bandages his feet. She digs through the soldier's pack, comes up with a decent pair of clean socks.

"Here, put these on." He gives her a funny look but does as she says. "Soldiers know to take good care of their feet." The socks are warm and dry, with thick soles. They should help to prevent more blistering.

"We'll take it slower for now. But once we get to Palumpolum, we're getting you a decent pair of shoes. These may be stylish, but they're going to destroy your feet before the end of this journey."

They trudge onward, stop again for food, rest and water, and then at nightfall for the night. Hope doesn't complain all day, but Lightning can see the exhaustion written all over him. She's happy that they've managed to avoid confrontations for the day, hopes they'll make it past the Behemoth Graveyard tomorrow with no incident.

* * *

The Behemoth Graveyard is a bizarre phenomenon on Cocoon. These giant, solitary and sometimes violent creatures all seem to gather at one location to die. In the Behemoth graveyard near Palumpolum, hundreds of behemoth skeletons have been found.

There are many theories that try to explain the phenomenon. Some say that a fal'Cie grew tired of the behemoths, and wiped them out. Others say that they died due to famine. Others believe that the creatures possess a higher intelligence that ever proven, so when they feel they are drawing near the end of their lives, they journey to the graveyards to die and rest forever among the remains of their ancestors.

What the truth is, Lightning doesn't know. Moreover, she doesn't care. What she does care about is that groups of behemoth carcasses usually indicate the presence of herds of living behemoths. While she and Hope might be able to slay one massive creature, a whole group would be impossible. Lightning would be speared, Hope would be trampled and they'd both find their final resting place among hundreds of animal skeletons.

When they come within viewing distance of the graveyard, Lightning can understand why people found the mystery so inspirational. The view is remarkable. The bones gleam white and rise like marble statues from the brown dirt. The ribcages of the monsters stand as high as Hope, and remind Lightning of pictures of ruins on the face of Gran Pulse.

"Wow." Hope says, and Lightning must concur.

"We're going to stay to north, stick to the perimeter. I don't want to go in there. We don't know what might be lurking."

Lightning skirts the visible edge of the graveyard, tries to stay on a north by northeast course to avoid losing a day. The ground shakes; she hears a low rumbling, much like thunder. She pauses for a second, determines the direction of the noise and she pulls Hope in the opposite direction; ducks into a ruined skeleton to hide. Within a minute three behemoths pass by their hiding spot. One monster stops and sniffs at the skull five feet from them. Its close enough that Lightning can smell the rotting meat caught between its teeth, the putrid air rising from its gut. Its rancid breath chokes them. Hope almost coughs, but Lightning grabs him, presses a hand over his nose and mouth. His heart pounds so hard she can feel it vibrate through her own body at every point of contact. Her fingers over his mouth pulsate to the tempo of his terror.

The beast swings its head closer to them, snorts, then moves on. Lightning holds Hope close, keeps his mouth covered until the behemoths are out of earshot. When she releases him, he shakes, coughs, then throws up his breakfast and lunch. She refrains from comment and pulls him onward, out of the graveyard and back toward the invisible trail they've been blazing to Palumpolum, hoping that their first encounter with the massive, fetid beasts will be their last for today.

* * *

They arrive at the Palompolum the next morning to find that the city has been overrun. PSICOM soldiers are everywhere; marching in the streets and setting up blockades, as if they are preparing yet another Purge.

"We can make it. Get to the station and board the train for Eden."

"You think it's still running?"

"Well if it isn't, we'll make it run." Hope tells her.

"Then punch straight into the heart of the Sanctum?" She looks at him, gauging his fear. He appears steady. "Now you're thinking like a Pulse l'cie." She's not sure that's a compliment.

"Well this is Operation Nora. It's not just Snow I'm after. The Sanctum's gotta pay too." She sighs, worried that he's so bent on vengeance; so intent on his anger. _What do you think you're doing? What sort of example are you setting? _

Hope tugs on her hand, says "You're the one who said we had to fight. Every minute we waste we're tempting fate." Doubt creeps through her. Has she been on the wrong path? "There's some underground tunnels not far from here," he points in a vague direction. "I used to play in them when I was a kid. No one uses the entrance anymore so even the army doesn't know about it. But I know where it is. We can sneak in under their noses."

She makes a decision. Now is not the time to change paths. They've come too far, fought too hard to give up now. She can't have a crisis of conscience in the middle of enemy territory. When in doubt, move forward.

"Sounds good," she says.

Hope looks relieved. "Great! Here we go." She lets him take the lead through alleys and side streets until their goal is in sight.

They do their best to stay under PSICOM's radar on their way to the pipes. There are so many soldiers everywhere. And not just the regulars anymore. PSICOM has called in the Guardian Corp on this little venture. Apparently the Sanctum is out for l'Cie blood, and if the Guardian Corp is involved, they obviously don't care who gets caught in the crossfire. Lightning feels her bloodlust wake up again now that she has a blamable target in her sights. She would be more than happy to give these people a fight right now. These puppet soldiers are responsible for everything that has happened over the past week. They carried out the Purge. They murdered innocent civilians. They are responsible for Hope's mother's death, and for Serah's...fate.

Still, there are too many of them here, and too many civilians around. If she begins attacking now, how many new orphans might she create? How many parents might lose their children? How many people will lose their spouses? How many more Hopes? How many Snows? She refuses to be the impetus for yet another mass murder of Cocoon civilians at the hands of the Sanctum.

They reach the pipes without being spotted. They are home free until Lightning hears, "hey you! Halt! She turns to see a Corps Tranquifex aiming at her. The fool broke his watch, left his post, and is now aiming his weapon at her.

Very bad idea.

It's over so quickly that Lightning feels embarrassed on the soldier's behalf. She can't even kill the poor bastard. It would be like slaughtering a chocobo chick. With a broken wing. Instead, she leaves him unconscious behind a building. She takes the opportunity to relieve him of his weapon, his grenades and his pack. She eyes his boots for Hope before deciding that too big boots would be more of an impediment to the boy than the high-style, low quality sneakers he currently wears. She leaves the boots and takes the rest of the gear. It will all come in handy.

She looks at the unconscious soldier again. She should kill him. The punishment he'll receive for letting any and all of these items fall into enemy hands will be far worse than the quick death she can deliver. She considers the idea for three seconds before discarding it. She may be a killer, but she's not a murderer. She doesn't plan to become one now. Not for some lousy soldier.

Hope leads them through the tunnels, explains that he's spent his childhood exploring them. "Where do they go?" Lightning asks.

Hope hems and haws about it. "I've never gone that far."

"Well, we'll find out where they go together." Lightning says. It doesn't matter to her, now that they've reached some sort of relative safety. They move along the walkways that surround the fal'Cie Carbuncle. Hope explains to her how the large fal'Cie is basically responsible for feeding the entirety of Cocoon. Without Carbuncle, everyone would starve.

"I guess we should leave it alone. People don't need another reason to hate us." Lightning grieves for Hope's lost innocence. That the notion of 'cutting off Cocoon's food supply' had even occurred to him speaks volumes about his mindset. This boy had probably never experienced hunger before his experience in the Purge. Not real hunger; not the type of hunger that fuels desperation, that causes riots and murder. Not the type of hunger they would cause if they attacked Carbuncle and destroyed Cocoon's food source.

"Hungry people are angry people," she tells him and steers him onward. What is she doing with this boy? How much further down will she drag him? He is an angry child. She is an adult. She should be protecting him, helping him deal with his pain and loss. Instead, she has been feeding his anger; feeding off his anger. She's been driving his need for revenge; making her self-destructive mission his own. Using him to justify and prescribe meaning to her own petty vengeance. He should be home with his father where he belongs, not planning to wage war on the Sanctum. She is a warrior; he is a grieving child. She needs to end this now, before something irreparable happens. She couldn't save Serah, and she'll never forgive herself for that failure. She probably won't be able to save herself. She will save Hope, starting right now.

She stops walking and says, "Wait. We can't do this. I was wrong." He sputters at her, trying to catch onto her meaning. "I made a mistake. Operation Nora is over."

She stands firm in the face of his adolescent anger. She refuses to cave to his fury or his tears. "You can't do that!"

She grabs his shoulders and waits for him to look at her. How can she explain? What can she possibly say that will make this better? She's been on a rampage for so long, and he got swept up in her wake. She's tried to ditch him along the way, but he persisted. It's only natural that he should feel betrayed now, when they are so close to accomplishing their 'mission.' Unfortunately, Hope never understood that her mission has always been to die violently; to punish herself.

She can never explain this to him. He won't understand, and probably won't believe her anyway. He'll only hear that she is letting him down. She forgoes explanation, says the thing she thinks Hope needs to hear.

"I am not abandoning you. I will never abandon you. We'll figure out what we need to do. But what we've been doing is wrong." She draws him to her, holds him while he cries. This poor brave boy who had been so determined in his vengeance. She had almost let him destroy himself. Her grief had made her so blind. In losing Serah, she'd lost all perspective. This boy is fate's gift to her, her second chance. She'd almost destroyed it in her anger.

His crying resolves into soft hiccups and hard shudders as they make their way to the exit. She looks down at Hope. They will be alright.

* * *

They make their way back to the surface. Lightning has convinced Hope that they should go to his home and tell his father what happened. She's hoping that when they get there, Hope will realize that home is where he belongs. He'll realize that revenge won't offer him anything close to the comfort that his home can. They reach the surface unchallenged.

When an entire battalion of PSICOM soldiers surrounds them, live on camera, Lightning realizes that she has been careless. She'd been so eager to get the boy home, to do a good deed, that she'd gotten sloppy.

She watches the soldiers surround her and weighs her options. She feels Hope pressed against her back; his heart pounds so hard, it vibrates through her body. She dropped her guard and now Hope is going to die. She can't let that happen. She weighs each option, throwing them out until only one remains.

"Start running." She whispers.

"Wha?"

"I'll keep them busy,"

"But..."

"You survive," she orders. She can't look at him, not after she'd promised him that she wouldn't abandon him. She sends a small prayer to any deity that might listen to let this boy live to get home to his father.

When an explosion rocks the whole courtyard, Lightning wonders if her prayer has been answered. The chaos from the blast gives her all the distraction she needs. She doesn't know what the hell is going on, but she's not about to question this grace she's been granted. Hope yells, "It's him" as she grabs his arm, drags him behind her as she fires at anything and everything in her path. Adrenaline lends her speed as it slows down time. Her peripheral vision vanishes, and the world narrows down to the path she is cutting through the soldiers ahead of her. She shoots until she closes distance, abandons the gun in favor of her blade. She lays waste to the soldiers, continues hacking through them until she and Hope are the only people left standing.

She turns her eyes upward, watches as the coward that ordered their execution flees with his life. She promises herself revenge.

The motorcycle flies out of nowhere, startles her from her murderous thoughts. She covers her head, looks up as it skids to a halt.

"Lightning!" Snow smiles and winks at her. _Jerk, _she says to herself, but it lacks the usual animosity. After all, said jerk just saved their lives. She takes stock of the situation, surveys all the casualties to make sure none are moving before she looks back at Snow.

"Hmph," she harrumphs. So this is the 'him' that Hope had been yelling about before. Snow to the rescue, huh? Well, she still doesn't like him; but she does trust him to do the right thing. She shoves Hope at Snow and orders him, "Take care of him." She turns to take off, determined to rip through whatever remaining PSICOM soldiers are around. She'd like to get her hands around Yaag Rosch's throat, but she'll take what she can get.

"Lightning, listen to me." Snow is following her.

_Oh no. Can't he just do as he's been told for once? _"Get moving."

"You don't understand. Serah's alright. She'll turn back." She stops, takes a breath, tries to calm herself down. She wants to hit him again; wants to put her fist right in his face for insisting on re-opening these wounds. Every time she starts to feel that she's accepted what has happened, Snow persists in telling her that Serah will be alright. Why can't he see that nothing will ever be alright again? Her baby sister is gone, turned to crystal before her very eyes. She can't hear this now. She will end up losing the tight grip she has on her control.

"Take care of Hope," she grinds out and runs, hears him yell "Wait!" behind her, but she does everything she can to widen the distance.

Snow will take care of Hope. He may not be her favorite person, but she knows that she can trust him to do that much. She may not buy his whole 'Hero' bit, but she knows he does. He takes that self appointed role very seriously. He'll die for Hope if he has to.

That is one thing they have in common.

* * *

TBC...


	3. Palumpolum Concluded

Thanks to all those who read and reviewed. This is going to be the last chapter so closely tied to the game story line. It was supposed to be a short chapter. That didn't work out so well. There will be a bit of AU in upcoming chapters I suppose, but I'm a fan of canon and the story will stay within the general framework of the game.

* * *

-Palumpolum concluded-

Lightning charges through the streets, cutting a swath through anything that stands in opposition to her. She is rage undiluted, no longer hampered by her concern for Hope. She trusts Snow to take care of the boy, to lead him safely through the paths she clears.

PSICOM blocks the street ahead, intending to blockade the town square. They spot her and level their weapons. They have superior numbers but she has superior skill. She rolls, leaving them to fire on empty air. The weapons they carry are long barreled, designed for distance and accuracy. She rebounds from the roll, continues to advance. Closing the distance will put them at a disadvantage. They will be forced to reposition themselves and level their weapons again. A member of the Guardian Corps would be good enough to do it in under three seconds. These soldiers are not Guardian Corps, and she only needs two seconds. She leaps into the air, somersaults and lands behind them. A twist and whirl of her arm sends three soldiers to the ground either dead or dying. She slices through the barrel of the remaining soldier's weapon, reduces the gun to scrap. She raises her weapon to dispatch the remaining soldier.

"Oy!" She spins at the new voice, brings her weapon to a defensive position. The dark haired woman from the square-Snow's mystery woman-stands behind her. The woman whirls her Bladed Lance like a baton, whacking the staff against the back of the remaining soldier's head. He hits the ground with a resounding thud. "Fancy some company?"

Lightning eyes her for a moment, then looks down at the unconscious soldier. This man who would have executed her...

"Sure you want to do that then?"

"Do what?"

"It's a fine line. You sure you want to step over it`?" The mystery woman toes the unconscious soldier. "Really think this one's worth it?"

"I..."

"Don't pretend you don't know what I mean." The blue eyes narrow. "Look, you do what you want. I'm no one to judge. I crossed that line a long time ago. I'm just saying once you step over...there's no going back."

Lightning understands: killing versus murder. Not a new dilemma for her. But she's never been so close, and the line has never been quite so blurred. Would it be murder? Or self-defense? This man would kill her given the opportunity. Is it really wrong to dispatch those that would execute her? She supposes she can put whatever spin on it she likes to justify killing this man; in the end, it's between her and her conscience.

She turns away from the downed soldiers and takes a few steps to gain some distance. She feels the other woman's eyes on her, refuses to meet them. "Just stay out of my way." She doesn't wait for an answer before she starts down the street.

"Whatever you say."

* * *

They have been travelling together in a silent camaraderie, fighting whatever soldiers they encounter with barely a word between them. So when her silent companion speaks, it startles her.

"So what's your name anyway?"

"Didn't Snow tell you?"

"He called you Lightning. I'm asking what your name is."

"That is my name."

"Oh. Alright then. I'm Fang, in case you were wondering."

"I wasn't."

"Charming, aren't you? I can see why Snow was so hot and bothered to rescue you now." That pulls her up short.

"I didn't need rescuing," she lies. The idea that Snow had cast her as damsel in distress in his ongoing delusion of being the Hero (with a capital 'H') irritates her beyond reason.

"Right. You had it all under control," Fang says. "I could see how in control you were while I watched live on T.V. as the Sanctum prepped for your public execution. Playing possum then, were you?"

Lightning huffs. She can't argue Fang's point, but she's not ready to think of nor accept Snow as her Hero. Snow and 'Hero' bring up too many bad memories. Her anger lays too close to the surface for her to dredge them up.

"Where are they anyway? We cleared a path for them and he's nowhere to be seen?" Lightning had only meant to change the subject, but now that she's thought about it, genuine concern creeps in. What if something happened to them? She starts back towards the square, looking

"Hold up a minute." Fang says. She pulls out a radio, starts dialing. Waits an interminable length of time before she starts yelling into the phone. "Where are you? Why haven't you checked in?" She sounds like she's scolding an errant child, which if she's speaking to Snow, is pretty accurate. She starts sputtering on about "you're great, I'm great...everything's great. Here, figure out a rendezvous point."

Lightning stares at the communicator. Fang wants her to speak to Snow? That is exactly the opposite of what she wants to do.

"That you, Sis?"

"I'm not your sister." God, he infuriates her! "How's Hope?"

"Hope's fine." The words unclench something inside her, make it easier for her to breathe. Okay then. A rendezvous point.

"We'll meet at Hope's house in Felix Heights." She listens to his agreement, then says, "Snow...it's about Hope."

"Lightning...it's me...sorry...operation.."

"Hope? HOPE?" Oh no! He's going to try to kill Snow! She could kick herself. She should have known that Hope would not be able to let go of his anger. After all, she'd helped cultivate it over the past week. "Hope, can you hear me?" She has to stop him. He'll destroy himself if he does this.

"Yelling won't fix it." Fang says to her and takes the radio. "It's called interference." She puts the radio away and starts walking. "We'll see them soon enough. Maybe you should cool that head of yours, eh?"

Lightning can't help but worry about Hope. And Snow. What has she done?

* * *

The journey to Felix heights is...enlightening. Fang's revelation that she is responsible for Serah becoming a l'Cie and her flip, "sorry about that," sets Lightning's blood boiling. Backhanding her feels good, but changes nothing. In the end, venting her anger on Fang is no more productive than blaming the fal'Cie and Sanctum and going to Eden to seek revenge. Any satisfaction she might glean from retribution would be cold and empty. Serah will still be gone.

She looks at Fang again. The Pulsian woman is waiting for her to decide whether or not she's going to continue to hit her; to blame her.

Lighting lets the matter drop, buries her resentment. Fang is an ally now. What's done is done, and truly she and Vanille are no more responsible for Serah's fate than Snow. They didn't doom her, at least not intentionally. Whether or not their actions set into motion all the horrid events of the past two weeks, Lightning cannot say.

"Let's go. We have to get to Felix Heights."

* * *

When they round a corner and see Hope squaring off -alone-against an Ushumgal Subjugator, Lightning's gut wrenches. "Hope!" She yells, as she runs into the fray, throwing herself into the line of fire.

"Not bad, kid." Fang says. She stands between Lightning and the machine.

"Where's Snow?" There are not a lot of reasons that he would have left Hope alone.

"He's okay," Hope says, glances back. Lightning follows his line of sight to an unconscious Snow. Something inside her twists, but she stifles it, and refocuses her attention on the battle at hand. She can't worry about Snow right now. She has to worry about surviving.

The Subjugator has one main weapon, and it uses it relentlessly. The laser on its back fires sharp bursts of crippling and lethal amounts of energy. Lightning keeps herself always in the line of fire, prepared to die to protect her companions.

"I'll draw the fire. Go for the power source!" Fang yells to her. Before Lightning can even acknowledge the insanity of that plan, Fang , "You looking for me?"

The machine turns towards Fang, giving Lightning an opening to hit the control box on top. "Hope, hit it with everything as soon as I'm clear." Hope nods, and she takes off, leaps upwards, aims for the antenna. The metal is tough, but her Edged Carbine is tougher. She takes the antenna off with two hits. The entire robot bucks beneath her now that it is deprived of sensors and navigation. She loses her balance, falls to the ground and nearly gets trampled. Fang grabs her, drags her away while the robot fires its weapon. The shots are haphazard without aim, but no less dangerous for the lack of accuracy.

Once she and Fang are clear, Hope does as she'd told him: he unleashes his magic. The machine shorts out, falls down from the high voltage. Smoke pours from it, sparks ignite and it twitches on the ground, trying to complete its objective. Fang finishes it off with hard hit in the power supply. The entire machine shudders, sparks and collapses.

Lightning pants in the silent aftermath of battle, her quick breaths a roar in her ears. The three companions share a quick look. Fang breaks into a huge grin. "And I was just getting started," she laments and walks over to the fallen Snow.

Hope shuffles toward her, head down. He hasn't looked this defeated since the Vile Peaks, and she can't figure out why. He holds out her knife. "Operation Nora didn't work out." Something inside her unclenches at his words. He has called off his crusade and let go of the anger that she had encouraged. She pulls him to her and hugs him, promises it'll be okay; that she'll keep him safe.

"Don't forget about this one," Fang says, indicating the still unconscious Snow. He has not moved at all, but he's still breathing, so that's something.

"That one will be alright." Lightning says, pulling his arm across her shoulders and hoisting. He rouses a bit when she starts to pull, helping her get him upright. The small movement makes her feel better, lets her know that he's still in there somewhere. "He's too stubborn to die." She maneuvers him to his feet and sets out toward Hope's house.

* * *

The journey to Hope's house is arduous. While Snow had started the journey moving under his own power, he is now dead weight. Sweat trickles between her shoulder blades, drips into her eyes; her lower back burns under the burden of Snow's weight. His head is pressed in the crook of her neck, his left arm lays across her collarbone, just shy of a full on choke-hold. As Snow loses his battle for consciousness, she loses hers against gravity. He slips a bit with each step. She clutches him tighter to her, knows that they will each carry bruises from this journey. Her fingers dig hard into his injured ribcage. Her recently injured right shoulder throbs with the effort of keeping him upright.

"My house is up there," Hope says, and takes off at a run. Fang jogs ahead a bit to keep Hope in sight while Lightning plods onward steadily. She trusts Fang to watch over Hope. She keeps her own eyes fixed on the ground in front of her and her concentration focused on keeping herself and Snow upright.

At the gateway to Hope's front yard, Snow goes limp, starts to drag her down. "Come on, Snow. We're so close." He locks his knees, tenses his arm into a steel band across her body. "That's it," she encourages. She widens her stance, grabs his left arm with her left hand to pin it in place, slides her right thumb into a belt loop and hoists him up. He groans as he settles along her side, breath bursting from him in a hot gush. "Sorry." She settles her hand back at his ribs and hauls him to the front door.

Snow loses the battle for consciousness as she reaches the threshold. He sags towards the ground and she follows, ends up on her knees on Hope's front porch, Snow's head pressed into her clavicle. She lets his arm go and he slips further down until she gets both arms around him in a bear hug to stop the descent. Snow hangs like a ragdoll in her grip as she reaches to knock on the front door.

Fang opens the door, looks down at her. "There you are! Lost the battle did he?"

"Would you mind?" She's not sure why Fang is just standing there grinning at her.

"Not at all." Fang grabs Snow's right arm, waits for Lightning to pull his left back across her shoulders. "On three. One...two...three." Fang lifts as Lightning hoists and stands, drags an unconscious Snow upwards and pulls him into the house. "We can put him in here. Hope's dad gave us the guest suite."

"Great," Lightning grates out between clenched teeth. She and Fang drag Snow to the bed, dump him face down. "I need a minute." Truth be told, she could use an hour. She needs to catch her breath. She'd never realized how heavy Snow is. "How's Hope?"

"I think he's happy to be home. He's in with his dad now. I figured I'd give them privacy."

Lightning looks at the closed door, wonders what's going on in the house beyond it. She thinks of Hope trying to explain everything to his father and wonders if she should go to support him. She decides that this is something Hope needs to do on his own. Getting in between family is never a good idea.

"Yeah. They need it." She turns her attention back to Snow. "Help me get his coat off."

"We're undressing him? He's gonna be upset. I'm sure he always wanted be awake if he got two women to undress him in bed." Fang climbs onto the bed, starts working his arm out of one sleeve while Lightning works the other side. "Of course, he'd probably prefer not to be the only one getting undressed."

Lightning ignores Fang's running commentary and focuses on removing the coat without jostling Snow anymore. Once that's done, Lightning rolls Snow onto his back. He's still out but his breathing is even. She runs her hands over his ribs, up over his clavicle. She is relieved when she finds no breaks.

"Help me with his shirt." Fang grunts at her in annoyance but complies. Lightning holds Snow upright while Fang pulls the shirt over his head.

"Not bad," Fang mumbles.

"Please. Enough." Lightning says. The whole situation makes her uncomfortable. Snow is not high on her list of favorite people, but Serah loves him and he is now her ally (family). He needs her help; she doesn't want to think too much beyond that fact. He's pretty much the last man she wants to undress. She lays him back on the bed. He is one giant bruise from shoulder to hip. His ribs may not be broken, but they are definitely bruised and possibly fractured.

"His ribs need wrapping," Lightning says. Fang grunts and grabs their med-kit. The two women wrap him up as best they can and lay him back on the bed to rest. By the time they finish, Lightning is too exhausted to risk using magic. She's not that confident in her skills, especially as a healer and she figures that she might hurt him even more with a spell gone awry. Perhaps after some food and rest she'll feel more confident, and give it a try. For now she leaves a potion, a painkiller and a glass of water beside him for when he wakes up.

Lightning stands and breathes for a moment. She is sweaty, sore, hungry and tired. "I'm going to rustle up some food," Fang says from her position perched on the chair arm. "Why don't you take advantage of the facilities? I think I spotted a multi-head shower in there." Fang disappears through the door.

A hot shower sounds like paradise after a week of sponge baths in ice water. Lighting grabs her pack and heads into the bathroom. She stares at her reflection. It is like looking into the eyes of a stranger. Dark circles accent haunted eyed. She turns on the water, plays with the faucets until the temperature is near scalding, strips and climbs into the shower.

The hot water is heaven on her aching body. More than a week of running, fighting and sleeping on cold rocky grounds has left her body painful and bruised. Her right arm complains from all the abuse it has taken. The fading greens and yellows that paint her body from collarbone to bicep is now spotted and speckled with the darkening purples of fresh bruises. She has taken several hard hits over the past few days and she hadn't adequately healed from the last injury. Her shoulder is going to be a mess for awhile. She'll have to live with the pain for the time being.

She soaps herself up, watches dirt and blood mix into the water on its way down the drain. She lathers up again, rubs deep into her bad shoulder and stiff neck, and lets the hot water beat down on her as she shampoos her hair.

The moment spirals away from her in a full body tingle. She stops moving, stands under the spray without feeling. Something like a low buzz, only without sound and coming from inside her, fills her head. She goes numb at her temples, then through her head, then down her body; her vision grays out, like the she's viewing the world through a cotton filter. The light sparkles into its composite colors before her eyes. She stares unseeing at her hand, watches it move in complete disconnect to her will. Like it isn't even part of her. Time stops, stretches, speeds. She brings her hand up to her forehead, rubs at it like an ache. There is no pain. It is excruciating. She is confused; she has no idea where she is, or why she is naked and wet. Why she is rubbing her head, or scratching her chest...

She snaps back to awareness with a shiver to find she is sitting on the floor of the tub. The water has run cold and beats down on her like a storm. She reaches and shuts the faucet, sits shivering in the draining tub. What the hell happened? Her eyes burn from shampoo, her skin is pruned from the water. How long has she been in here? She remembers getting in, remembers feeling...strange. She doesn't understand what has happened to her.

She climbs out of the tub with suds in her hair. She stands for a moment shivering, dripping water and soap onto the cold tile beneath her feet. She looks down, watches a spot of blood drip and pool near her toes. She moves her hand, sees blood splash onto the back of it. She brings her hand to her face, touches under her nose. Her fingers come away bloody.

Panicked she grabs a tissue and wipes her nose, finds that the bleeding has already slowed to a trickle. She pinches her nostrils together, waits for a moment until the bleeding stops. It's odd. She hasn't had a nosebleed since she was a child. She'd grown out of them by the time she was nine. Once the bleeding stops she wipes her hands, grabs a towel and wraps it around herself. She sticks her head in the sink to wash the remaining soap out of her hair. When she's done she looks in the mirror into bloodshot eyes. She is ghost pale with a smear of blood across her top lip. She washes it away, wishing that she could erase the sense of disquiet the strange event caused as easily as the evidence. Something terrible happened here but she can't figure what. Her eyes flutter over her reflection, stop on her brand. Her bleeding brand. She grabs a tissue and blots at it, sees deep scratches running through it. Fingernail marks.

She's afraid to look, but she refuses to be a coward. She checks her hand, finds remnants of blood and skin under her nails; damning proof that she'd injured herself in some bizarre fugue state. How? If she'd done this in the shower, the blood should have been washed away as she'd scrubbed the shampoo out of her hair under the sink faucet. Right?

Maybe some of it had stayed. She hadn't been cleaning her fingernails, just rinsing her hair. The idea makes her feel better, though she can't say why. She grabs the soap, scrubs at her hands furiously to remove all traces of blood. The sight of her clean hands makes her feel better, steadier. She needs to get out of this bathroom. She looks for her clothes and finds soft sweatpants and a cotton shirt left in their place. She pulls on the clothes and leaves the bathroom.

Snow is still on the bed, but it seems that he has surfaced from unconsciousness into a healing sleep. He has shifted position to favor his bruised side. Lightning envies him. She could use some sleep now. She isn't sure what is happening to her and is afraid to rest. She fears what sleep might bring if she's losing time while she is awake; afraid what she might do to others if she's injuring herself.

"Took long enough in there, didn't you?" Fang sits in an armchair in a darkened corner of the room. "I brought your outfit for washing, left that get up out for you. That was forty-five minutes ago. The food is cold."

Lightning hadn't even noticed the food sitting on the table. She remembers that she had been hungry before. Now she feels nauseated, dizzy. She just wants to sleep. She wants to stay awake.

"I'm not hungry."

"Alright then. Why don't you lie down and get a little shut eye? I don't think we can afford to stay here much longer then..."

Lightning plops down in a chair beside the bed. She falls asleep with a vague sense of unease. Something is wrong. She'll worry about it when she wakes up...

* * *

TBC...

I'll have the actual short chapter up by tomorrow. To any and all celebrating the Easter Holiday on Sunday, have a Happy Easter!


	4. Interlude

Okay, here's a quick chapter. Thanks again to all who have read and especially all who are nice enough to review. I appreciate the input and the encouragement.

-Emergency Newscasts #'s 1-3-  
Interlude

We come to you live with an update on the situation in Palumpolum.

Anonymous sources from high within the Sanctum have confirmed that the fugitive l'Cie escaped from the quarantine around Palumpolum. Our reporters were on location to get an exclusive look at the l'Cie and to show our viewers the dedication of the Sanctum in ridding Cocoon of all traces of the Pulsian threat.

Cue the footage...

It seemed that PSICOM had the situation well in hand as they surrounded the l'Cie earlier today. At the last minute, the monstrous l'Cie turned the tables and savaged the soldiers sent to detain them. Reports on the total casualties are sketchy, but one source indicated that the number of soldiers and civilians killed in today's firefight is well over two hundred.

Primarch Galenth Dysley assures us that the Sanctum will not stop until it has extinguished the threat from Pulse.

* * *

Three Days later...

It's been three days now since the dreaded l'Cie escaped custody of PSICOM in the streets of Palumpolum. Our source inside the Sanctum has assured us that they are close to discovering the whereabouts of the dangerous fugitives, although no one has revealed how they plan to find them. With time passing and the trail growing colder, the citizens of Cocoon can only wonder if they will be the next victims of the deadly Pulse l'Cie.

The Sanctum cannot confirm the total number of casualties of the massive battle in Palumpolum three days ago. The death toll now stands at two hundred sixteen PSICOM soldiers, seven members of the Guardian Corps, and four hundred and twenty seven civilians.

In other news...

* * *

Two weeks later...

Cocoon is still in mourning after the devastating loss of the beloved Palamecia, along with its entire crew complement of seven hundred thirty nine. While we cannot confirm the loss of our Primarch, Galenth Dysley in the battle, there has been no sign of the revered leader.

The Sanctum announced today that it has arrested, tried and summarily executed a known l'Cie sympathizer and ally. Bartholomew Estheim, a former Sanctum employee, was detained for questioning after a massive firefight at his estate in Palumpolum led to the deaths of fourteen PSICOM soldiers, and the serious injury of dozens more. Our source in the Sanctum has advised that investigations revealed Mr. Estheim as a traitor who aided and abetted the murderous l'Cie, who are now being held responsible for nearly fifteen hundred deaths. As an accused traitor, he was tried by military tribunal, found guilty of treason, and executed in accordance with Cocoon penal law.

Estheim was the father of Hope Estheim, one of the alleged l'Cie involved in what is being coined 'the Palumpolum Massacre.'

No trace of the l'Cie has been found on Cocoon. Some believe that they may have fled for Gran Pulse to raise an army and return to finally destroy us and our way of life.

* * *

TBC...

Okay, so if you can't guess, we're off to Gran Pulse next. I'd considered writing through the Palamecia and The Fifth Ark, but those chapters are really more battle driven than anything else. There's not a whole lot of story or character development to be added. I figured they might slow up the story rather than add anything, so I'm skipping them.


	5. Gran Pulse: 27 Days and Counting

Thanks to all who've read and reviewed. I appreciate all your comments, critiques and encouragements. To those reading along silently, I hope you enjoy.

I got tired of reviewing and revising this chapter. I decided to just post it.

* * *

-Gran Pulse, Twenty Seven Days and Counting...-

Lightning listens to the sounds of Gran Pulse at night. This world that they'd called 'hell' in jest has turned out to fit that description. A deep breath fills her with the scent and taste of wildflowers. Insects chirp out a soft lullaby in the darkness, carried on a cool breeze. Of course she must admit, Heaven might be just as apt a description.

Gran Pulse is not what she'd expected. The feral creatures everywhere don't shock her. She would have expected hell to be full of monsters and devils, after all. But the overwhelming beauty-that had been a revelation. The colors and smells, the songs of the animals and the wind through the foliage still have the power to render her speechless, even after weeks of wandering the wilds.

She sits watch over her sleeping comrades. Her friends. She's not ashamed to use that word anymore. These five people: Sazh, Hope, Vanille, Fang and even Snow have become dear to her. They are family now. Their focus brought them together, but their hearts and loyalty have made them one.

The nook that they are camped in is quiet. Fang called it Vallis Media, though how she can tell one valley from another is a mystery to Lightning. Whatever its name, the walls of the hills created this tiny psuedo-grotto: a safe haven amidst the wilds. Lightning feels at ease, despite her current occupation of guardian. They set up camp here eight days ago and are reluctant to move on without a destination. They have fortified this area well, and it is as close to 'safe' and 'home' as any of them have known in...a long time.

"Hey. You mind if I sit?"

Snow. It says a lot about her state of mind that he's managed to sneak up on her. That she didn't shoot him in her surprise says even more.

She looks up at him, realizes that he is actually waiting for an answer. _Strange._ Snow never asks permission to invade her solace or personal space. So it's something serious then. She glances at the boulder that serves as her post before sliding over in silent invitation.

Snow takes it with a "thanks;" sits beside her, leans back to rest on his elbows. A comfortable silence hangs over the pair for a long moment. Snow breaks it, as she knew he would.

"I've been thinking."

"Uh oh," she deadpans.

"Hey," he tries for affronted but comes up amused instead. "I'm serious."

"I know." She looks over her shoulder at him. He stares at Cocoon above, eyes full of longing. "So tell me."

"You knew about Hope's mom, didn't you?" She can't keep the surprise off her face. That topic is so far from her mind, she almost can't track the conversation. Blue eyes meet hers with no trace of their usual humor. "Before he told me ?"

She nods. "Yes. I knew." She wants to ask why but doesn't. She hopes the silence will encourage him.

"I've been thinking about her. A lot." She turns toward him, watches his profile as he watches the sky. He looks over to her, catches her eye without really seeing her. He's too busy looking inward. "Do you know what happened? How she was killed?"

She ponders for a second before saying, "I know she died during the Purge."

"Hope never told you how she died?" Now he's looking at her as if he hopes he can pry the truth from her with will alone.

She thinks back, comes up blank. "No. He only said that she was killed."

"And that it was my fault." She had a feeling this might be where Snow had been headed with his line of thought. Whatever he's thinking is fruitless; no good can come from traveling this path.

"It wasn't your fault. I told him that, back in the Gapra Whitewood. I believed that then. And he believes it now. "

He's shaking his head. "You're wrong. I handed her that gun myself. She died protecting me!" He's on his feet now, pacing like a caged animal. She wants to stop this madness. They have too many current problems to worry about ghosts of the past.

"You know what she told me?" He waits for a cue, some sort of interaction. Lightning obliges him with a single shake of her head. "She told me, 'moms are tough.'" He stops pacing, stops speaking. She counts out twenty-three heartbeats before he speaks again. "And she was tough, you know? She saved my ass. Then she died." He stares at his empty hand, whispers, "slipped right out of my hand. And I just let her go."

"Enough!" He snaps out of his memory to look at her. "You didn't order the Purge! You didn't kill her! People die Snow, and you can't save them all!" She stands in front of him, puts her hands on his shoulders. "And you weren't the one she died for." Her eyes drift over to where Hope sleeps, curled small next to Vanille.

"_He_ is why she fought." She grabs Snow's chin, forces him to look at the sleeping boy. "_He_ is the reason that she took that gun from you. She was fighting for her son." She points at the sleeping boy for emphasis. "His life, and his future. She fought to protect Hope; to get him home." Snow looks lost and broken and maybe a little bit hopeful. She drops his chin and her voice. "And so have you."

She drops her hands, puts distance between them. There are things that she should have said to Snow. She'd asked him for forgiveness back in Palumpolum. He'd agreed so carelessly, but now she wonders. Had he forgiven her? Had he forgiven himself?

"You were never responsible for Hope's mother. What happened to her wasn't your fault. And neither was what happened to Serah." He remains silent, for which she is incredibly grateful.

"I was wrong to blame you."

"Lightning..." he starts, but she holds up a hand and halts his words, silences the absolution he is about to grant.

"You stood by my sister when she didn't have anyone else. When I abandoned her, you protected her." Her hands clasp her elbows, hugging herself against the twin colds of the dark and her memories. "Just as you've protected Hope. And I know you well enough by now to _know_ that you did everything you could to protect Hope's mother. Because that's what you do."

"Light," he tries again, his voice soft, almost pleading.

"You're a protector. That's who you are." And he is. She has a dozen memories over the past weeks of Snow standing at the fore of the fight, taking hits aimed at his companions. What has she done? She's let him get hit. Hell, she's hit him herself. Because she's a destroyer. She tears things down, rips things to shreds. "Stop holding onto Nora's death. Accept it and let it go."

"I can't." Anguish undiluted.

"Why not?" She faces him again, seeks answers in his countenance.

"Because I see what's happening." She follows his gaze to the sleeping Hope. "To him." Snow swallows. "He's fading."

"He's just tired," she protests. "We all are."

"Not like this. He's dying a little bit every day. I keep hearing his mom tell me to get him home safe. And all I see is how I'm failing her all over again. "

Lightning understands his fear, because she shares it. Hope is wearying, and she's terrified that she's going to fail her own promise. One she made to him to protect him; one made between herself and whatever deities might be listening to die for him if necessary. One made on the memory of her lost sister to do better.

"I know how you feel. And I'm scared too." He looks surprised at her admission. To be honest, she's pretty surprised herself. "But you know what, Snow? I feel better now. What Nora said to you, about mom's being tough? I don't know whether that's true or not, but I'm pretty sure that Hope's mom was a tough lady. And after all this time, I'm pretty sure Hope inherited that spirit because he is one strong kid."

Snow looks like he's torn between hope and despair. She's there with him. "I know, you're right. Still..."

"And you know something else?" She interrupts, unwilling to allow the backslide into despair.

"What?"

"I'm not so worried about Hope anymore." She lays an open palm on his chest, feels the steady heart beat beneath her palm. "Because I know you're looking out for him."

Snow gives her a small grateful smile. Then the vulnerability vanishes like a mirage. He laces his fingers behind his head and the small smile morphs into his trademark cocky grin. "No. _We're_ looking out for him."

"Damn right we are," she agrees. Snow looks lighter somehow. They make a matched set, because she feels unburdened for the first time in weeks. She's been carrying around the same secret worry, watching Hope fade and helpless to stop it.

"You know what, sis?"

"I'm not your sister," she returns, more out of habit than out of any real animosity.

"Not yet, maybe..." he shrugs, uncaring. "As I was saying, _Sis_," emphasis on the last word, "I think we make a hell of a team." He slings an arm around her, knocking her off balance and sending her crashing into his side, nose mashed into his collarbone. She pushes off him, regains her balance, hooks his ankle and dumps him onto the ground. He lets out an involuntary "oomph" when his rear end hits the loamy earth.

She stands over him with her hands on her hips. She fixes her face with her most potent glare and says, "I think you may be right about that. But I'm still not your sister." She turns and walks away.

His amused "yeah, yeah. Whatever," drifts to her, sweet as the honeysuckle and jasmine that share the breeze.

* * *

Lightning pulls up short, ducks behind a stone pillar. She has taken point on another exploratory mission through another deserted ruin in Gran Pulse. The sun is at its apex, baking the stone beneath their feet. The nights in Gran Pulse have gotten cooler since they've arrived, but the days remain blazing on the plains, and scorching in the ruins. The heat rises in visible waves from the stone pavers beneath her feet, smearing the sharp outlines of objects into hazy impressions.

Vision morphs into feeling, sends a tingling numbness from her head down her body. It crashes over her like a wave, nauseating in its intensity. She breathes, hot air singeing her nose and lungs. The world spins. She seeks a horizon to center herself and finds that she has no idea where she is, what she is doing. Everything is unfamiliar and wrong. She shouldn't be here in this stone world. There is something important that she should be doing. She can feel it in her gut, in her pained chest. Her hand seeks the pain, presses deep and the feeling fades, disappears into the background like white noise.

She comes back to the world pressed to the stone column. Her head is still muzzy. Her brains feel like over ripened fruit, rotting and ready to ooze through her ears. The new pressure behind her eyes gives her a splitting headache. She presses her thumb and forefinger into her eyes hard enough to see fireworks in the darkness, to offer an external pain as counterpoint to the pounding pain from within. The throbbing beats in her temples, behind her eyes and radiates backwards and down into her stiff neck. It is an exquisite pain that lasts only a few moments before easing, leaving behind an ache and burn in her eyes.

She wonders if the burn is a remnant of the episode. Her eyes hadn't hurt before, but now they feel like they've been sunburned. Perhaps she'd stood staring into the sun during her fugue? She needs to pull herself together. Her companions will catch up to her soon. She blinks, spots Snow approaching her and closes her eyes again. An image of Snow lingers tattooed in her vision, colors reversed from reality like a photographic negative. That she can see is a good sign. The image melts into darkness leaving only the burn that indicates a good possibility of damage from the reflected light. She hopes it's nothing permanent.

Of course, she doesn't have much of a future anymore. Cie'th or crystal: neither calling requires perfect vision.

She shakes her head to dispel the encroaching depression. No point in letting her thought s wander dark paths. Her body may be wandering them soon enough. Lightning draws out her canteen and takes a long pull. The water is too warm to be refreshing, too gritty to be quenching. But it is hydration, so she swallows and stifles complaints.

Snow sidles up alongside her, back to the pillar. He eases from behind their cover in order to take a quick peek. The lack of fiends confuses him enough that he steps out of cover. "Why are we stopping?

Her body still shakes from this last...episode. She doesn't want anyone to know yet. She doesn't understand what's happening and can't hope to explain it. She needs to get a grip on what's happening to her before she shares with her companions. She's afraid she's losing her mind. Perhaps she's getting ill, or worse. She needs to relax, refocus. Lightning flushes her eyes with water, puts eye-drops in them. She blinks a few times before closing her eyes in relief. "I just needed a minute."

Sazh has caught up to them now. "I second that!" He sits on the ground, seeking out whatever small bit of shade the height of the pillar offers in the high sunlight. "It's about time we took a break. All this wandering around with absolutely nothing to show for it except sore feet and possible heat stroke. We're gonna run ourselves ragged and die long before we turn into Cie'th if we keep up this pace." The chocobo chick chirps in agreement, settles on his chest. He sighs and closes his eyes.

"Hey, are you alright?" Snow takes her arm, nudges her to face him. "You're bleeding." His concern seeps through his posture and voice. She shrugs him off, wipes the trickle of blood from beneath her nose.

"I'm fine."

He snorts at her. She sneers at him. Sazh laughs at both of them.

"Why don't you two, I don't know, actually rest while we take a break? " He leans back, takes a deep drink from his canteen. He grimaces at the taste of the untreated water. Lightning makes a mental note to spend a longer time tonight preparing the water. Potable is acceptable but not ideal.

"He's right," Snow agrees, sits down in the increasing shade. Lightning remains standing.

"Of course I'm right. You two spend almost as much time bickering with each other as you do fighting off the local wildlife," he grumbles. The comment annoys Lightning and makes Snow chuckle. That annoys her even more.

Sazh pulls a native piece of fruit from his pack, takes a large bite. The juice pours onto the hot ground, splashes and evaporates before he swallows. The chocobo chick squeaks and warks until Sazh shares his snack. "I don't know about you two, but I'm sick of this place. Blazing heat in the day and freezing cold at night. Not a living sole around except for wild beasts running around, ripping each other apart. Or, even better, trying to rip us apart! Don't repeat this to Fang and Vanille, but Hope was right: Gran Pulse is hell!"

Snow munches on his own fruit, nods and hums his agreement. He looks wistfully at Cocoon hanging overhead. "I wonder what's going on back home."

Lightning leans against the pillar, arms folded. She doesn't agree with Sazh, although she acknowledges that his description is accurate, and his reasoning sound. She can understand her companions' distaste for this place. Yet Lightning finds the uncultivated and untamed Gran Pulse breathtaking precisely for its ferocity. Those attributes that her companions bemoan thrill her. She has spent her whole life with rules and order, fighting chaos in all forms to enforce calm conformity. There is something liberating in this honest, simple, brutal world. She debates speaking the thoughts out loud, sharing her insights with her friends.

She remains silent.

They continue exploring the broken city. The size and scope of the stone edifice are testament to ingenuity of a now lost people. Lightning can't help but marvel at the magnificence of it all. How many people did it take to erect the pillars? How many to lay the stone walkways? How many people once dwelled within the now fallen walls? Where had they all gone? What catastrophe had befallen Gran Pulse? Or had the wilderness simply reclaimed by force what humans had stolen? Would they ever have the answers?

Would Cocoon share the same fate?

* * *

They move on as the sun begins its descent. Their foray into yet another set of ruins has again turned up nothing. Four weeks of exploration has yielded nothing. They are no closer to saving themselves today than they were the day they left The Fifth Ark. It appears as if the six of them are the only living humans in all of Gran Pulse. Each day dashes their hopes of removing their brands and saving themselves from their cursed fates. Each passing day brings them closer to their own ends. Wearied and wary, Sazh, Snow and Lightning begin their journey through the hills, back to the relative safety of Vallis Media.

The waning light paints shadows across the land, opens darkening maws at the cliff bases. The three companions pick up their pace, eager to make it back to their camp. The creeping darkness holds too many blind spots, offers too many hiding places for the many predators of Gran Pulse. They have enough problems during the day. They don't want to be wandering around in the pitch darkness of night.

Lightning has point again, pacing out ahead of her companions. They move in silent tandem, three pieces of one entity. The weeks of exploration have honed and attuned them to each other. Lightning doesn't have to look to know that Sazh is thirteen meters behind her and five to her right, Snow twenty behind and three to her left. There is a heavy cloud cover overhead with a smell of ozone drifting on the quickening breeze. Lightning picks up her pace, hoping to make it back to camp before the rain begins.

The dizziness hits her like a sledge hammer. Time slows, her hearing vanishes, and she stands swaying. The world disappears into an unfamiliar blob in her vision. She lifts her hand, stares at the object in it in incomprehension. It is heavy, and pulls on her arm. Why is she holding it when it hurts? What is she doing here? Where is here? When comprehension floods in, she realizes she is holding her weapon, she is on point, and she is trying to beat a rainstorm back to camp. Her heart pounds at the realization that she had momentarily lost...everything. She feels the now familiar trickle of blood slip over her lip and drip off her chin.

Her distraction costs her. Her brief act of loitering has painted a target on her that she was too dazed to notice. She hears it too late; the Svarog is on her before she has a chance to bring her Edged Carbine up. The winged nightmare dives at her, drives her to the ground. Winded, she raises her weapon to shield herself from the next attack, manages to save her throat from the beast's claws by sacrificing the soft flesh of her forearm. Blood spurts out of her, spatters across the belly and talons of the diving Svarog, fueling its bloodlust. Lightning rolls, throws her feet back over her head in a backward somersault. She ends on her knees, weapon following the momentum of her body in an upward arc. The beast impales itself, the tip of her blade sinking inches into the underbelly before the creature screeches and changes course. It pulls up, hovers, and approaches again, enraged.

Lightning pulls up her weapon again, two handed now. From her position on her knees she lacks leverage to swing. She switches to gun mode, gets off two shots before she realizes that she can't steady the weapon enough to shoot straight. Both shots graze their target, only enraging the animal further. Despite its severe stomach wound, the dive-bombing animal is about to win its prey. Her head swims and she falls backward on the ground, laid out flat like a sacrifice.

The change of position saves her life. She hears loud pops, like fireworks. She wants to open her eyes to watch them, hoping that they are pretty. The animal screams again but she can't even move her head to discover the cause. She figures it's going to kill her now. She knows she should feel concerned but she just feels resigned. The ensuing silence half convinces her that she is dead.

"Hey there, now, don't you close your eyes. You hear me?" Sazh speaks right in her ear. He startles her with his proximity. She is disoriented from the attack and woozy from blood loss. She's too disconnected to be alarmed. There's something important nagging at her mind but she can't drum up enough energy to sustain one thought, let alone a whole line of them.

"I need something to make a pressure bandage." _Is he talking to me? _She opens her mouth, wants to ask the question out loud but forgets what she was about to say before she finishes the first word.

"Here, use this." _Snow._ She has something to say to him too! Something important that he needs to do if she dies. Two people that will be his responsibility alone. She wishes she could focus enough to speak.

"Perfect." There's a flurry of movement next to her, sending her into a full body twitch. She gropes for her weapon only to find her arm immobilized. Sazh tells her to "stand down soldier," in a soothing voice. It is a ridiculous order considering the circumstances. Instinct tells her to flee, training tells her to arm herself and attack. She can do neither any more than she can relax. She settles on a compromise of clenching her jaw and fist.

"Hey, sis." Gentle fingers tap her cheek. Strong fingers press on her arm. The pressure on her injury drags her back to consciousness, makes her aware of her body in all the wrong ways. The rain she'd been hoping to beat earlier now falls in slanted sheets. Her clothes and hair are plastered to her body by the twin miseries of pouring and ponding water.

"Come on. You gotta open your eyes now." Lightning shivers in pained misery, aware of every centimeter of her body. Mostly because the parts that don't outright scream in agony are cold and drenched. She spends a moment wishing for oblivion but knows that if she surrenders now it will be the last time. She focuses on Snow's voice.

"...m' not..." she moans.

"What's that? You gotta speak up, Sis." Snow's voice is choked. He uses the nickname to get a rise, she knows.

"M'not...your sister." She manages to peel open her eyes. His fingers are sticky on her face and his face is freckled with blood, but he's giving her a beaming, toothy smile.

"Bah! A minor detail. One day you'll stop arguing with me and just accept the truth." His blond hair, darkened from the downpour, hangs in his eyes. Something about him is different, incongruent with all her memories of him. Her mind is too sluggish to discern what.

"...won't."

"Oh yes you will." He looks up, says "how's it look?" _How does _what_ look? _She's still trying to unravel the question when she hears Sazh reply and realizes that he hadn't been speaking to her.

"It's a mess. I have the bleeding under control and the bandage will hold. For now." She tries to turn her head to look at her arm. It feels weighted and dead, the slight throb the only proof that it is still attached. Snow' s fingers on her jaw thwart her efforts at movement. "But we need to move fast."

"Got it. Give me that bottle, would you?" He turns back to her, slides the hand from her jaw around the back of her neck, pulls her up with minimal effort and maximum care. "Okay, you have to drink this, Light. No arguments." The lip of a bottle is in her mouth followed by the thick, bitter warmth of healing potion. Snow upends the bottle, giving her more than she'd usually take, but she won't argue. She feels awful, her consciousness scattered and thin, like jam spread over too much bread. Snow lays her back on the ground for a moment while her head reels and stomach turns. Sazh is on his feet, repacking their gear. Snow leans over her, poised like he's waiting for something.

She feels like a bug stuck in tree sap: suspended and ensnared. Her thoughts are warm molasses. Either she's dying from blood loss or she's...drugged. _Son of a..._

"Wha'd y'do?" Her usually sharp tongue is fat and clumsy, catching on teeth and gums in its effort to form words.

Her words spur Snow into motion. He slips one arm below her knees, the other under her shoulders and scoops her up off the ground. She makes a sound to protest, but they are moving and the world is spinning around and around...

She's out before the third revolution.

* * *

Awareness comes in fits and starts. She first hears the crackle of a campfire punctuated by the loud pops of tree sap igniting. The white noise of the fire lulls, lets her drift somewhere south of conscious for a while.

The next sense to return is smell. She smells the fire she's been hearing, the smoke that Vanille uses to cure their meats. She thinks for a moment about food, wonders when she last ate. Her stomach turns over. And then she becomes aware that she can feel again.

The return of feeling means a return to the pain, brings back memories and pulls her awake. She blinks open her eyes, groans at the sharp pain in her head.

"Ah, there you are! Glad to see you're still among the living." Lightning is still fighting for coherence when Fang speaks to her. The raven haired woman is a blur, backlit by firelight.

"That was a close one alright." Fang sits beside her, leans closer but doesn't touch. "You were twelve shades of pale when they got you back here."

Lightning stops trying to focus her eyes. She can see well enough to know she's back at base camp, and her head hurts too much to struggle against her blurred vision.

"What..."

"Happened?" Fang finishes. "Can't say I'm surprised you don't remember, what with the drugged stupor and everything."

"Drugged..." She cannot track with the conversation. She's too muddled.

"Yep. 'Hero' over there decided to dose you good and proper. Apparently our boy Sazh has some alchemy skills that he's kept under wraps until now. You never do know people...even when you live with them it seems."

"Alchemy...?" Her mind is sluggish, and following the energetic woman's conversation is difficult for Lightning when she had all her faculties. Right now, she's operating at about one quarter speed.

"Yep. Somehow he managed to whip up somethin' he calls 'Elixir,' which basically knocks you out with all the finesse of a rubber mallet while accelerating healing, or some such nonsense." Lightning's eyes focus on Fang who is apparently sitting watch for the night. By the depth of the darkness, Lightning figures the night to better than half over. "He assured us all that you would wake up feeling shiny and new."

"He lied," Lightning scoffs. Her mouth tastes like something crawled in it to die. Her head feels like something is trying to kick and chew its way free. Maybe whatever crawled in her mouth didn't die after all...

Fang laughs at that. "Yeah. But it was probably more of an exaggeration than an all out lie, though. After all, you are awake, and your arm's still attached. 'Hero' said the cut was so deep he could see your bone shining through it. Vanille said that without that little concoction, she might not have been able to do anything for you."

That gets Lightning's attention. She looks down at her right arm. It's wrapped mummy tight from her fingers to above her elbow in white bandage. There are a few spots of blood on the bandage, a low, humming throb in the arm, but otherwise, it looks and feels remarkably well. "Bone, huh? That's...bad."

"That's a bit of an understatement, my friend. "

So her right arm is still attached and more or less intact. Her left arm, on the other hand, is killing her. She refuses to admit how exhausting just turning her head has become. She has to fight her own muscles to get a look and gets a view of soft platinum hair.

"Yeah, he wouldn't go to sleep until he was sure you were alright." Lightning smiles at the sleeping boy. He's fallen asleep in the crook of her left arm, his head resting on the upper arm close to her shoulder. Her hand is freezing and dead behind his back somewhere, and she should move him to restore the circulation, but she can't bring herself to disturb the sleeping boy.

She lets him sleep, spends a moment watching his steady breathing before shifting a bit until the pins and needles, indicating restoration of blood flow, pinch at her hand. Hope lets out a small grumble, frowns, then sinks right back into sleep.

Lightning looks back at Fang. Fang's blue eyes hold a fondness that is very familiar. Hope seems to have that effect on a lot of people. "Poor kid was near hysterical when he saw you tonight. Wouldn't listen to Sazh or Snow, just cast every damn spell he could until he exhausted himself."

Guilt eats at Lightning. She is supposed to be protecting Hope, not the other way around. Of course, it seems like the boy spends more time worrying over her and healing her than anything else. So much for all her promises to protect him.

"He's a good kid. Strong," Fang says.

"Yeah, he is." Lightning agrees.

"I think his mum named him well. Hope. He keeps us all in line, yeah? Keeps Vanille smiling. Keeps Snow fighting. And keeps you livin'." Lightning drifts into sleep, content.

* * *

_Thick dark clouds churn over head. The muscular darkness presses in on her, a physical obstruction she wears like shackles. White lightning spiders through the clouds, flashes, and is gone. All that remains are the spots that dance around her field of vision._

_She pulls her weapon as the thunder roars. She is supposed to be on point, knows that she'd been leading before the weather turned. Why is she now alone?_

_She hears a scream. She thinks it's an animal at first, brandishes her weapon looking for the target. She realizes that the scream is not the wordless scream of a pained animal, after all. It is the sound of a companion under attack. The sound is ahead of her and she wonders how she could have fallen behind when she was on point. She dashes toward the scream, arrives in time to watch Odin slice off Snow's arm._

_He falls as she screams his name. How could Odin do this, betray her in this manner? He had yielded to her. He was supposed to come to her aid, not attack her companions. He attacks only at her behest. Why would she do this? She never wanted this!_

_"Snow!" She falls beside him. His arm is gone, stump bleeding into the mud. She presses to staunch the flow, realizes that she might as well try to tear Cocoon from the sky with her bare hands, or carry an ocean in a paper cup. _

_"I wouldn't waste my time if I were you, Soldier." Sazh says from beside her. Where did he come from? _

_"I was right here all along." _

_"Why didn't you help him?" He's chewing a piece of fruit, juice spilling down his chin and mixing with the blood and mud on the ground._

_"Why would you want me to? Isn't this what you wanted?"_

_"No!" Snow lays silent on the muddy, bloody ground. _

_"Oh, well in that case, there's only one way to fix this." Sazh touches her arm, draws her attention from the dying Snow in her arms. "You have to give him your arm." And he pulls..._

* * *

She wakes again to a strange pulling at her right arm. Panicked, she tries to pull it away, but the grip on her wrist is firm.

"Would you stop struggling?" Snow sounds irritated, which is very new for him.

She looks at him, wonders at the relief that fills her. An image of him wounded, dying, slips away from her, vanishes in the way of all impressions. Drugs have a tendency to screw with her dreams, let them bleed into her waking mind. She must have been having a doozy ; her heart races and pounds in her chest and ears.

Snow is bent over her arm, white bandages trailing from his fingers. He has what looks like the entirety of their med kit surrounding him. Bottles, ointments, pills, drops, sponges and bandages all lined up.

"You drugged me."

"Yes, I did." He throws the used bandage into the fire. It flares orange before vanishing into black smoke. "You were dying. I had to make a call." He's wetting a gauze sponge with a clear, antiseptic smelling fluid.

She hates that he had to make that call. Snow looks defeated. His trademark smirk is gone, and he looks haggard and weary. Every day takes its toll on her companions. The ubiquitous fear of metamorphosis into mindless monsters gnaws at their will. They are all exhausted and terrified. That she nearly died today in such a trivial skirmish has only served to remind them all of their imminent fates. Snow, who has been the group cheerleader, has been steadily losing his luster. Today's events have worn him down even further. She hates that she is responsible for chiseling off a little bit more of his idealism. "I know. Thank you."

He freezes, wetted sponge poised over her injured arm. His blue eyes are round when they meet hers. "Don't thank me," he says, shaking his head. He looks back at her arm. "This might sting." He wipes the soaked bandage over her injury, dabbing gently so not to disturb the sutures and scabs. Whatever it is on the surgical sponge burns enough to make her wince, but not so much to force a recoil.

He takes his time, mops blood from the suture site, follows up with an unfamiliar ointment. She wants to ask what it is, but the first dab of it is wonderfully numbing. She didn't realize how uncomfortable she had been until granted relief. Her eyes are heavy now, slipping shut against her will.

"I was only a few feet away," Snow's voice yanks her awake again. "That thing nearly dismembered you while I was in arm's reach." He winds a fresh bandage around her arm now. His hand cups hers, big thumb pressing the end of the bandage into her palm as he winds the bandaging over, threads through and pulls, over and over until she is wrapped up to her bicep again. The pressure on her injury just shy of too much. Perfect. Offering support without pain.

He's being an ass. Big shock. "Knock it off. You two saved my ass out there."

"No. You saved your own ass." He cuts the bandage, ties it off under her elbow. "I just watched you nearly bleed out in the mud."

"I'm fine. A little beat up maybe, but I'm still alive." She can't remember the actual fight. She remembers the episode that caused it. She is far more upset with the cause than the consequence in this case.

"Sazh reacted while I stood there. He..."

"Didn't have the guts to drug me. You did. Don't think I don't know you drew short straw on that one." She reaches up with her bad hand, pats his fidgeting fingers. "Stop being ridiculous. I was the one who lost focus and got ambushed." Lost focus. Talk about putting a shiny spin on things.

"You were on point too long." She can't listen to him blame himself. She is responsible. She had no business out there exploring while she's having these lapses of consciousness. The only thing she can be thankful about is that the only one hurt by her carelessness is herself. She could have just as easily gotten one of her companions hurt or killed. "I should have taken over..."

"Enough!" She barks. Hope shuffles against her, too close to waking. Snow refuses to meet her eyes. _Sazh is right. We do bicker too much. _"I wouldn't have let you take point. You know that." _I don't relinquish control easily, _she doesn't say aloud_._ "It wasn't your fault, and I'm fine. I'm too tired to debate this anymore."

"I just...can't lose anyone else." Her heart wrenches at the raw emotion in his voice. "I just keep...failing."

"You haven't failed anyone." She reaches out, wraps the fingers of her right hand around his wrist. He tenses but doesn't pull away. He looks at Hope curled against her.

"Tell that to him."

"Are we really going to have that conversation again? When are you going to stop beating yourself up over things that were not your fault?" Snow shakes his head, stares down at her fingers around his wrist. He tugs his hand loose and she thinks he's going to get up and walk away; he looks as exhausted with these talks as she feels. He remains where he is for a moment, gaze locked on her hand, her arm. When he meets her eyes again, there is something uncomfortable about it. His fingers find hers, twine and thread for a moment before settling in a loose hold. The moment hovers like an axe. Her heart kicks at her ribs a bit, spurs her to **do** something. She speaks to discharge the atmosphere, to stop him from saying or doing something...regrettable.

"You're just tired, Snow. We've been going non-stop for more than a month. We don't eat well; we barely sleep. We run and we fight. We have this looming danger and this ticking clock. We all feel that we're running out of time. It's making us sloppy. It's not a surprise that we're burning out and making mistakes." She pulls her hand from his, pats his knee once before resting her arm across her stomach. "The only real surprise is that it hasn't happened sooner."

He tries for a smirk but falls flat. He drops the mask entirely, lets her see all his confused feelings before arranging his face into one of neutrality. "You're right. I need to get some sleep. Thanks for the advice, sis."

He is halfway across the camp before she says, "I'm not your sister." She wonders at her regretful tone.

* * *

TBC...

To anyone worried this may be headed towards romance I say, "don't." I don't do romance.


	6. Life Lessons

Thank you for reading and reviewing. I'm glad you're enjoying the story.  
Here is where we definitely start veering into an AU. I have not finished the game yet. (It's driving me crazy-a lot.) So don't expect there to be many similarities after Chapter 11. I had an idea for the direction of the story. If I finish the game, I'll probably lose momentum. So, I'm working on this story constantly so I can get back to the game. Expect more soon. (like this weekend soon.) Enjoy!

-Life Lessons-

Three days pass before Lightning ventures from her bedroll. The near constant sleep has fatigued her. She's stiff and sore, and as cranky as a bear with a hangover, but her wounds have healed at a remarkable rate.

She sits on a log near the center of their camp while Vanille unwraps her arm like a birthday present.

"So how does it feel?" Vanille giggles.

Lightning finds Vanille...grating. She's sweet and kind, and Lightning feels awful for all she tries to avoid her. But Vanille vacillates between chipper and maudlin, carefree and careworn so often that Lightning has whiplash. She has a hard enough time dealing with her own ping-ponging emotions. She really can't deal with anyone else's.

Still, she is an excellent healer.

"It feels good."

Vanille hums in a way that just screams, 'oh goody' as she finishes unwrapping the arm.

The black sutures in the puckered flesh of her arm look hideous. The skin is pink and white, wrinkled from the combination of compression bandages and moisturizing ointments that have been liberally applied over the days and nights since her attack.

This is Lightning's first good view of the injury. Half of her wishes she hadn't seen it at all. The fiend caught her with its filthy claws on her forearm just near the bend of her elbow, then tore upwards toward her wrist. The result is a thick, round puncture trailed by a thinning jagged line that ends a few centimeters from the knot of her wrist bone. It must have bled like a geyser as an open wound. Now that it is scarring, it resembles a comet, or shooting star, and will be yet another permanent mark on her body to remind her of her time as a l'Cie.

Looking at this scar, she realizes just how lucky she is to still have an arm.

"It looks much better. It's almost all healed up." Hope says, peeking over her shoulder.

"I thought you were out exploring." Lightning keeps her tone mild, though she's unhappy that Hope is here for the unveiling. He has refused to leave her side for the past three days, and while Lightning is truly fond of the boy, his constant presence is grating on her. She is a woman who requires solitude and privacy, especially when she's ill or injured. She likes to lick her wounds in private.

"I wanted to see." He is pale beneath the embarrassed blush coloring his cheeks, reminding her that he is fading. His worry over her is only exacerbating and expediting his degradation. "I'm worried about you."

She sighs. She feels like an ass, but still. Is it so much to want a bit of breathing room? "You shouldn't worry about me, Hope. Vanille is taking excellent care of me."

Vanille hums an "uh huh" in what Lightning can only guess is agreement. "It's almost all healed up. I think I can take out the surface sutures now."

"Can I help?" Hope asks.

"Sure," Vanille says as Lightning says "no."

Hope turns wet blue green eyes to Lightning. She feels like a tool. "Why not? Don't you want me here, Light?"

The truth hovers on her tongue, desperate to fly out. She stifles it, understands that sometimes you have to lie to those you love in order to preserve their feelings. This is such a time. "Of course I want you here, Hope." Not entirely untrue. "If Vanille says she can use your help, who am I to argue?" Hope smiles at her and moves closer to Vanille.

The morning after her 'accident,' Lightning found out that Vanille had been responsible for her emergency care. Lightning had been given Ether on top of the home-made 'Elixir' to keep her under while Vanille, summoning all her skills as a medic, cleaned out the wound of dirt, sealed up the severed vein, stitched up the muscle and sutured the entire wound closed. Hope had watched the whole process (which had taken the better part of three hours), and then poured every bit of his magic into her, willing the injury to seal and heal clean.

He is still pale from that experience. Snow hadn't been wrong when he'd told her that Hope is fading. _/He's dying a little bit everyday./_ One more shock might push him over the edge, cause him to lose his battle and become a Cie'th. Lightning fears that day more than she fears turning herself. She cannot allow herself to be the instrument of his downfall. She'll never forgive herself.

Vanille has small sharp blade in one hand, and a pair of long tweezers in the other. "Okay, see if that water is boiling." She instructs, voice light and sweet as honey. "If it is, take it off the fire. We're going to use it to clean the equipment." Hope follows her instructions. Lightning half expects Vanille to do a little dance. Everything she does has such...flair.

_Stop it!_ She does her best to repress all irritation and unkind thoughts. After all, Vanille saved her arm, and quite probably her life. She's a sweet girl, a skilled medic and a decent fighter. She's an asset to their party and on most days, Lightning appreciates her company.

Today is not most days. Pain, worry and inactivity have made her temperamental. Today, Lightning is doing her best to tolerate the bubbly girl. She is failing.

Lightning turns her attention to Hope as he follows Vanille's careful instructions. He stops to ask her "am I doing this right," and "how's this" a few times until he grows comfortable. Lightning feels like a voyeur, watching the boy in his open admiration for Vanille, the slight pink that rises on his cheeks when she praises him. Does he have a crush on her? It might be sweet in other circumstances, but Lightning can't help but hope not. Young love is hard enough without being doomed from the outset. And Hope doesn't need any more disappointments in his life now. He's too...fragile.

Once the tools are boiled, Hope wipes them down with the antiseptic. Vanille takes the blade and touches it to each suture, right near the knot on her skin. The blade is razor sharp, slicing through the suture material like butter without nipping the skin beneath. "Now, we just," Vanille grasps one cut piece of thread with the tweezers, "grab on, and pull." She is so cheerful ! Lightning wants to smack the happy right out of her!

Yeah, today is not such a good day.

Vanille pulls and the thread comes right out. The tug is gentle and the threads have been cut so clean that there is almost no pull through the wound itself.

Vanille is a really good healer. Lightning will give her that for free. She laid in nearly eighty sutures on the surface of this wound, sealing it so well that, coupled with magic and potions, all that remains is a browning line surrounded by red dots. "Looks good. Keep taking the medicine Sazh made and the scar should fade in no time," she says.

When the last suture is removed, Vanille hands Hope a gauze sponge, tells him "Now, just clean it up with the antiseptic, apply this salve, and we're done."

"That's it? We don't have to bandage it again?" Hope looks unsure. Lightning makes a fist, flexes the muscle in her forearm. She can feel the pull of the muscle healing beneath, but the skin on her arm is strong. No blood leaks from the suture site. Hope runs the soaked bandage over the now healed skin. Lightning can smell tea tree oil mixed with something else. Perhaps witch hazel? Strange mix, but it is soothing and Vanille knows a hell of a lot more about poultices and medicines that Lightning ever will. The smell is potent but inoffensive.

"Well..." Vanille contemplates. "Maybe we should for now. It's not like you're gonna take it easy on yourself, right?" She nudges Lightning, giggles and turns away, presumably to get the bandages.

_Hilarious. _Lightning stifles all vapid comments. Besides, Vanille's 'joke' is pretty much the truth. Lightning doesn't 'take it easy.'

"How we doing here?" Sazh says, sitting down beside her. He gets a look at her forearm for the first time since it was ripped open. "Hey, not bad at all. Nice work you two!"

Hope beams at the compliment, but doesn't blush. _Crush then. Poor Hope._

"Yeah, one day you're going to have to tell me where you learned to cook up Elixir."

Sazh rubs the back of his neck, inexplicably uncomfortable. Lightning figures there is a story there, but lets it go for now. Too many other things to worry about now. She makes a mental note to dig it out later.

"Poor man's Elixir, really." Sazh says, watching as Vanille starts wrapping her arm. "What are you wrapping it up for? It looks pretty good. "

"Apparently, I can't be trusted not to open it again." Lightning says. The tone is light, but everyone catches the sarcasm. _Oh well. _

Sazh laughs. Says, "I must concur. You do have a tendency to throw yourself in head first."

"Since when is my arm on my head?"

They all laugh this time, tension dispelled. Hope checks the knot on the bandage at the wrist and pats her arm. "Good as new," he concludes.

Lightning curls her elbow, tightens her fist, releases the fist and straightens her arm. She repeats the motion a few times, feeling the push and pull of the muscle, waiting for twinges or spasms. Testing the limits. When there are none worth mentioning she has to conclude, "Better than new. Thank you Vanille."

Vanille looks down at the floor, locks her fingers behind her back and swivels back and forth for a moment before saying, "you're welcome!" Unused to compliments then? The conclusion makes little sense, but Lightning dismisses the line of thought as unimportant. She needs to test the limits of the healed arm. She needs to be ready. They don't have time to dawdle.

"Lightning. Don't forget that you lost a lot of blood too. All the magic in the world doesn't replace it. You need to take it slow or you'll end up making everything worse." Lightning feels her temper flaring. Vanille is crazy if she thinks that Lightning is going spend another day laying around wasting time. Preparedness requires constant training and conditioning, and they all need to be prepared. They are in a battle for their lives, possibly even their souls.

Of course, if overdoing it can cause a setback in recovery, she'll have to follow her 'doctor's orders.' She's not willing to waste even more time due to stupidity. If caution is called for, she'll bite the bullet and take things slowly. For now. "I understand. Thank you." She gets up and makes her way to her bedroll to retrieve her weapon.

"And what do you think you're doing?"

Snow.

He's been avoiding her like some sort of plague for the past three days. She doesn't know why that bothers her, which only bothers her even more. She shouldn't care that he's avoided her. She spent the first leg of this little adventure alternately hitting and avoiding him.

Except, she thought they were past that. She'd started to consider him...family.

So much for that.

"I'm going to walk the perimeter. I have to build up my strength again. I have to get my arm back in shape."

"Well, I'll come with you." He stoops to get his gear.

"No, you won't. I don't need a babysitter." She holsters her gunblade, happy to find that the action causes minimal discomfort.

"Wait a minute. You're still healing! You shouldn't be alone. You nearly bled to death three days ago. What if you reopen that wound?"

"Fine." He looks satisfied. "Hope," she raises her voice a notch, watches Hope rise to meet her eyes across the campsite. "Would you like to walk the perimeter with me?" Hope nods, flies into motion, grabbing his Airwing and pack.

Snow looks...upset? Maybe. Confused? Probably.

She is not interested in his feelings now. Snow complicates things with her. Their interactions are tense and frustrating. She'd thought things were getting easier, but every step forward forces three backwards and she feels too crappy to spend the afternoon in a verbal sparring match with him.

Hope and she share an easy camaraderie. They spent two weeks wandering the wilds together, fighting side by side and back to back. She'd take him into any serious battle if she were going, trust him with her life. If Snow wants her to have a babysitter or nursemaid, Hope is more than up to the task. Besides, she's not going into war. She just wants to stretch her legs and test out her arm. She's not looking for a fight, which is why all she plans to do is walk the perimeter. She'd be fine on her own, but she'll be happy with Hope.

Hope reaches her side, looks between her and Snow. He is smiling from ear to ear when he says, "Okay. Let's go." He thinks that the three of them are going on this walk.

Snow looks down at Hope, then at her. Perhaps he expects an invitation. He should be used to disappointment by now. She walks past Snow towards the edge of the canyon. Hope dawdles for a moment, confused but holding his tongue.

"Hey, sis..." Snow never could keep his mouth shut. Now is no exception.

"I am not your sister." She keeps her tone flat, devoid of any emotion. She refuses to even look back at him. She's being cruel now but she can't seem to help herself. She always seems to hurt him when she's confused. Lashing out is her first, best response and Snow is the easiest target. "We're only going to do a once around the perimeter. We'll be back soon." The small reassurance is all the consolation she can give him. She's gone before she knows if he's replied.

* * *

"Hey Light?" Hope starts, tone cautious. She knows he's curious about the thick tension he just witnessed. Hell, she's pretty curious herself.

"Yes?"

"Ummm, are you...mad at Snow?"

"No." She lies. She is mad, though she knows she has no right to be.

"Oh." They walk for a few moments in silence before Hope says, "because it kind of seems like you are."

_I am. _"I'm not." _I shouldn't be._

"Is it because he let you get so hurt?"

That pulls her up short. "What? Why would you think that?" Let her get hurt? Is that really what people think of her? That she would blame an ally for an injury?

"I...I didn't think that. I was just..." Lightning catches Hope's shoulders, looks him in the eyes.

"Who told you that?" She already knows the answer.

"Snow said that it was his fault you were hurt. I figured that's why you haven't spoken to him in the past few days, and why you wouldn't let him come with you today. Not that I blame you."

Lightning lets go of Hope, sits down hard on the ground. She rakes her fingers through her hair, then rubs at her temples; presses so hard it hurts._ When did things get this screwed? _"Are you alright, Light? Are you hurt?" Hope is panicking. "I'll go get someone." He's three steps away before her brain catches up to the conversation.

"I'm fine, Hope." He pauses, looks unsure. She stands up and brushes herself off. She can't deal with this now, so she packs it away with all the rest of her baggage. "You don't have to get anyone. I'm fine, really."

They continue their walk for a few moments until they come upon a small meadow. There are wildflowers in every conceivable color scattered around. There are shrubs with leaves so red that they look aflame in the sunlight. The insects buzz and the birds twill around them. It is a breathtaking place. A perfect place to stop for a quick work out. Safely within their perimeter, private, with the hills protecting one side and offering up a 270 degree panorama. Nothing would be able to sneak up easily.

Lightning stops, deciding to test her arm out. She does some quick stretches to limber up her arm before she finally draws her weapon. She swings the blade, long slow swoops, speeding up gradually until the blade whistles as it slices the air. Both her body and mind would benefit greatly from a full workout, some long Katas to center and attune herself, but she isn't ready yet. Despite what everyone thinks, she actually does know her own body very well, and is both conscious of and concerned about her healing. She has no interest in jeopardizing her recovery.

After a few minutes of swordplay, Lightning switches the Edged Carbine to gun mode, lets off a few rounds. She feels a twinge in her forearm on the third shot, sees the barrel of the gun waver a bit off target. Her forearm is too weak for sustained shooting, but is strong enough to handle the blade. She'll have to work to regain full motor function and strength. She knows all she needs to for now.

She holsters her weapon and looks at Hope. He has been watching her to the exclusion of all else. Not exactly good since he hadn't confirmed the area was secure. Still, they were within the perimeter safe-zone and she had been paying close attention. No harm, no foul, but she'll have to make sure to teach him to be more mindful of his surroundings. After all, her lapse in concentration is what put her on the wounded list. She can't imagine Hope getting this hurt.

"Alright. Let's head back," she says. She starts walking. He skips to catch up then falls into step beside her.

"I'm really happy you're alright, Light." Hope pats her bandaged arm before skipping ahead of her. Her vision blurs for a moment. She blinks, sniffs and decides that she must be allergic to something in that meadow.

* * *

Snow stands just outside of the campsite, arms folded across his chest. His tense posture relaxes when he catches sight of them. They are whole and hale, and he turns away from them in an attempt to be casual. He retreats back into the camp and sits on a log next to Fang, tries to engage himself in the ongoing conversation.

"What's a matter, Hero?"

"Nothing." Sullen is a new look for Snow. Lightning decides she hates it.

"So, why the long face? You look like someone stomped on your chocobo chick." Sazh's chocobo chick warks at that comment.

Lightning approaches the log, drawn by the smell of cooking food.

"Oh, good, you're back." Vanille chirps, gives her bandage a once over to check for damages. The bandage is still clean, no spots of blood dot it to indicate rupture. Lightning's walk and small workout have lifted her spirits so much that she finds herself enjoying Vanille's special brand of chipper. She concludes that prolonged inactivity is not good for either her or her relationships.

"How'd it go, then?" Fang asks, unconcerned with the state of her injury. Lightning finds Fang refreshing in her seemingly callous attitude. There are no airs put on with her, no fake sympathies. There is a limited scope to her interest and she doesn't bother pretending otherwise.

"It was great," Hope answers. "We found this little meadow not far from here. Light did really well. A few more days and it'll be like it never happened."

Hope's enthusiasm is infectious. Lightning gives him a fond smile. "What he said."

"That's great. Here," Fang says, handing over a kebob. Lightning takes it, spends a moment staring at it to determine what, exactly, she is about to eat, before giving up and taking a bite. The meat is a bit gamey, but otherwise flavorful. "It's good, yeah?"

Hope grunts his assent around a too big mouthful. He swallows, coughs, takes a swallow of water, coughs again and rasps, "delicious," before taking another huge bite.

While she doesn't share Hope's excitement, she has to agree that the food is good. It's easily the best thing they've eaten on this journey. There are vegetables, meats and native fruits all glazed and cooked. It's a veritable feast. "What's the occasion? "

Vanille says, "You, silly!" Lightning almost drops her food. Her? They made all this food for her? "We're celebrating your recovery!"

"Yeah, and now we can get moving again," Fang finishes.

"Fang!" Vanille scolds. She is about to squeak further.

"What?" Fang looks confused. "Oh, no offense, right? I just meant that, now that you're recovered, we can get on with things."

Vanille makes a disapproving sound. Fang holds her hands out in a 'what, I don't get it?' gesture. "Fang..."

"No she's right," Lightning interrupts. "We've been delayed long enough. It's not like we have time to screw around indefinitely."

Snow speaks up, "Yeah but overdoing it too soon is not a good idea either." He drops his uneaten food onto the ground and gets up and walks away. Snow playing it safe is uncharacteristic and unprecedented. This whole experience has rattled him far more than she'd guessed. Lightning looks after his retreating form, decides that she will speak with him...soon. She can't deal with him right now.

The five of them finish their meals. Vanille and Fang do the clean up. Lightning can hear Vanille scolding Fang for her 'insensitive remarks;' Fang denies all charges vehemently. Lightning disagrees with Vanille's assessment. She doesn't think that Fang is insensitive. In fact, she finds Fang's pragmatism refreshing.

Fang's priorities are, in order of importance, Vanille, herself, then her companions at a distant third, as long as they don't interfere with the health and survival of the first or second priority. Maybe. Lightning respects Fang as a woman who knows what she wants and who strives to get it. She values her as a fighter and chooses her, more often than not, to fight alongside her. She wouldn't want her to be a general coddler and mother-hen. She wouldn't be half the fighter she is if she stopped to worry about everyone's feelings all the time. She'll accept the occasional callous remark to have that sort of confidence in the person watching her back.

Thoughts about feelings and callous remarks returns Snow to center stage in Lighting's mind. Hope's comments from their walk still eat at her. Is that really the impression she gave? That she blamed Snow for her injuries? She can't figure how she could give such an impression. She knows the only one responsible is her. Perhaps everyone just assumes that she holds Snow responsible for all ills that befall her. It wouldn't be too unfair of an assumption based on her past actions. She picks at the thoughts for a while until, like a scab scratched too long, they start to hurt.

Things cannot be left as they are. She and Snow have come too far for the two of them to resume jabbing at, and dancing around, one another. They have too many enemies around them to constantly fight amongst themselves. She needs to settle this sooner rather than later. Lightning decides to look for Snow, figures he's had time to snap out of his funk. That's one good thing about Snow: he's too easy going for the business of grudge holding.

It takes only a moment to determine that Snow still has not returned to the camp. She figures he cannot have gone too far; he wouldn't have wandered outside their safe perimeter. While she isn't looking forward to hunting him down in order to have a big showdown, she also doesn't see an alternative. These sorts of problems tend to fester when left alone too long. Resolved, she sets out to find him.

Where are you going, Light?" Hope catches up to her. His eyes are bright, his pallor faded. Their walk today has done him good. If she tells him she's going to look for Snow, he'll want to come. When she refuses to allow him to come, he'll get upset. He'll worry. She just isn't up for a moody teenager right now.

Defeated, she says, "Nowhere. Let's go sit down. I'm tired after today." The truth of her statement shocks her and catches her off guard. She'd thought she was feeding him a line, making an excuse. It is only after she says it that she feels the full weight of her exhaustion.

"Okay." Hope sits on the log near the fire pit, picks up a mug and slurps at it. "Today was a good day." Hope looks happy as he sits beside her. So much better than he had, even earlier today.

Lightning smiles. "It was."

"Tea?" Vanille hands her a steaming mug of some sort of brewed native herbal tea. It smells zesty, and tastes spicy. The hot tea tastes good and feels good. She feels a persistent chill since she was injured, probably from the massive blood loss.

Fang has her own mug, sips at it, gives Vanille a fond smile as she sits down. Sazh has his own cup and a piece of fruit that he's cutting into pieces and sharing with the chocobo chick. "Where's 'Hero' gone to?" Fang asks.

"I don't know," Vanille says. "Snow seemed upset at dinner."

"That guy runs hot and cold. He'll be back cracking jokes about one thing or another before you know it." The chocobo chick chirps out in happy agreement. Or maybe in disagreement. Who knows?

* * *

Lightning takes first watch that night. Hope wanted to sit up with her, but Lightning told him, in no uncertain terms, to go to sleep. He'd watched her for a long while from within the cocoon of his bedroll until his eyelids grew too heavy to hold open. He fought sleep, much like a baby might, until it finally overtook him and dragged him down into dreams.

So now she sits alone with her thoughts. This is her first moment to herself in days and she tries to enjoy it, however thoughts of Snow nag at her. She's not going to feel better until they hash out their problems, and she'd like to do that before she turns it for the night. Lightning hopes to see Snow before the end of her watch. She wants to settle their differences now before the wounds between them become infected but Snow has not returned to camp yet. She refuses to acknowledge the worry that gnaws at her. Still, that he hasn't returned yet is worrying. She debates waking Sazh to take over the watch so she can go after Snow. She dismisses the idea quickly: if Snow had been interested in company, he would have returned to camp. She understands better than most the desire for privacy and the need for space and time for decompression.

She gives up on him and turns her attention upwards towards Cocoon. She wonders what has happened there since they escaped the Palamecia. She wonders if the Sanctum has conducted any more 'purges.' She wonders how many more civilians have been murdered at the hands of their protectors.

She wonders, with a dull ache, if she'll ever see her home again.

It comes on slow this time; creeps upwards from her throat and numbs her face and her brain. She still stares at Cocoon, but all thoughts and worries have faded. She has no tangible memory of the object hanging in the sky, no recollection of why she might care about it. She feels drawn to it, feels a biting anger while looking at it. Feels like there is something she needs to be doing...

"Hey Soldier. It's my watch. Why don't you go get some sleep?" Lightning turns toward the voice, sees the face attached to it. The unfamiliar face hovering at her shoulder. Her fingers tense around her weapon before a name attaches itself to the face. Sazh. She shakes her head; her heart pounds in her chest and in her ears. She'd almost attacked him. She hadn't known him at all and for a split second had planned to attack him. For a brief moment, she'd contemplated the feel of hot blood on her hands; she'd visualized the edge of her blade rending the flesh of his throat. She'd felt all her muscles tense and bunch to turn thoughts to reality. That she hadn't done it is irrelevant. Her threat level has escalated exponentially.

"Hey!" He looks worried. _He should be. I almost attacked him. I almost __**killed**__ him. I would have killed him! _Sazh digs in his pocket and draws out a handkerchief. "Are you alright? Your nose is bleeding." She brings her hand to her nose, pulls it away. Her fingers are coated and sticky with blood. This nosebleed is no small trickle. She's gushing blood and she hadn't even noticed. _What is happening to me?_ She takes the proffered handkerchief with a muffled thank you, hands shaking from a combination of fear and adrenaline. Sazh stares at her in concern. She has to say something or he might discuss his concerns with the others. She is not ready yet to reveal anything. She doesn't even know how to describe what is happening to her, let alone how to explain it out loud to other people.

"I think I'm allergic to something here. I've been having sinus problems since we got to Gran Pulse. " Sazh nods at her in sympathy.

"Oh. Yeah my wife used to have awful allergies. She's get sinus infections so bad she'd be sick for weeks. I don't remember her nose bleeding," he trails off. He regards her from beneath a furrowed brow.

"The air dries out my sinuses. Causes nose bleeds. I've had them since I was a kid." Lies upon lies. How will she keep them all straight? When will they end?

He looks relieved and she feels like trash. Her friend displays genuine concern for her, which she repays with misdirection and fabrications. "Oh, that's okay then. I'm just glad there's nothing wrong. We have enough problems trapped on this godforsaken world without getting struck down by some weird Pulsian sickness." _If you only knew, _she thinks. "Why don't you go get some sleep, Soldier? You've had a rough week."

_No arguments here. _She nods and gets up to go to her sleep roll. "Hey, Soldier?" Sazh calls. She feels something close to panic creep in. She turns to look at him. "Maybe Vanille can give you something to help you with the allergies. We're going to be stuck here for a while."

The relief is palpable. She is not ready to be outed yet but tonight's near miss proves that she is running out of time. She better figure this out quickly before the choice is taken from her. "Good idea. I'll do that. Goodnight."

She returns to her bedroll and sits, holding the handkerchief over nose. The blood pours out for long minutes; the red stain spreads slowly over the white of the cloth. Her head throbs, but the pain is minor compared to previous episodes. Still, she knows that this one was the worst yet. Previous spells have sickened her, confused her, muddled her. None of them have come close to driving her to violence.

She needs to figure out what is happening, needs to tell her companions. It was bad when she thought she was a danger to them because she might lapse during a battle and cause one of them injury through negligence. Now that she's had a violent impulse? Now that she knows that she may blank out and attack her allies in some sort of fit? Now she needs a plan. She cannot risk the safety of her friends any longer. That is an unacceptable risk.

* * *

_She stares at an empty vermillion sky. The clouds hang low overhead, blanket the entire landscape. She is on Gran Pulse, she knows, but it is not the Gran Pulse of today. The ruined cities are whole and occupied, bustling with a life that is now long gone._

_Everything speeds around her as she stands. The clouds fly by overhead, colors change to red, then purple, black, pink then to the clear blue light of day again. Over and over. In the empty sky there is now an outline. She watches it fill like a spider web. From thought to skeleton to husk, until Cocoon hangs unscarred and unbroken overhead._

_She watches others marvel at the small sanctuary. Dread fills her at the sight. It is an omen, a beginning and an end. She wants to yell at the people who stare upon the marvel with such joy. They need to flee. To hide. The coming of Cocoon spells death but she doesn't know why, or how she knows such a thing. _

_She needs to warn them..._

* * *

She wakes with a pounding heart and sense of discomfort. She chases after the remnants of her dream, feels there was something important in them. But they are gone, leaving behind only a vague unease that she knows will disappear in the coming minutes. Perhaps the medicines she is taking have once again affected her. She can't wait to stop taking them. She can't wait to feel better. She's been feeling sick for so long that she can barely recall what it meant to feel well. She rolls over, opens her eyes and finds Snow scowling at her. _Great. Just what I need first thing in the morning. _He's sporting a fresh bruise on his forehead and one on his jaw. Apparently the idiot had been out fighting with monsters, after all. Alone. Typical stupid 'hero' crap.

"What the hell is this?" He is holding the blood crusted handkerchief. All thoughts of her dream disappear along with her good intentions to smooth over their differences. She is cranky, and tired of his accusations. "Did you hurt yourself again? Did you reopen your injury?" Even if he is only using that abrupt tone to conceal concern.

"No. I'm fine." She snatches the handkerchief from him and looks at it. It is beyond help. There is no point in washing it. She'll have to burn it or the smell of the blood will draw predators. She should have done that last night. She's getting too careless.

"Right, you're fine." He doesn't do sarcasm often, or well. This attempt at her expense irritates her. "I know I always bleed like a stuck pig when I'm fine too."

"Keep your voice down. Other people are still sleeping."

"Not anymore we're not," Fang grumbles, turns over in her bedroll and pulls the blanket over her head. "Why don't you two shut up or take it somewhere else? Some of us sat watch last night and would actually like to get some sleep."

Lightning shoves the bloody rag into her pack. She's got to burn it now, but not in the campfire. She grabs her weapon, slings her pack over her shoulder.

"Where do you think you're going?" She always knew he was overprotective; in fact, it was the only quality about him that didn't inspire disapproval back when she'd considered him a lazy, unemployed do-nothing. It was good when it was aimed at Serah. Or Hope. But to aim it at her? That is something she can't tolerate. She's been taking care of herself and other people for too long to tolerate being scolded like a child.

Lightning growls. She grabs Snow by the arm and hauls him out of the camp. "Let's go!"

Once they are out of earshot (she hopes), she says "I don't know what your problem is lately but I'm getting tired of it."

"You're tired of it? I'm tired of all the crap, Lightning. You think I don't see what's happening?"

She goes cold straight to her toes. He knows? She is terrified and hopeful in equal measures. Can she unburden herself with him? It would be such a relief to share this secret that has been consuming her.

"See what?"

"I see that you're trying to get yourself killed." Her hopes disappear. He is as clueless as he's always been. She should be relieved. She isn't. "You're not taking care of yourself. You barely eat anymore. It's like you want to die," his voice trails off.

"That's not true." She says.

"I don't believe you." He shakes his head. His anger evaporates into something close to despair, maybe? Lightning knows how to deal with an angry Snow. She has no idea what to do with a concerned, miserable Snow.

"Look, Snow. I'm really tired, okay? And I'm not going to lie and say that I feel well. But I'm not trying to kill myself. That's not what's happening here."

"Then tell me what is happening because something is sure not right." He folds his arms across his chest, body language demanding answers.

She debates for a moment. Should she tell him? And if she does, what does she say? She has no idea what is happening to her. Will it actually ease his mind if she tells him that she's losing bits and pieces of her sanity on a regular basis, and oh yeah, by the way, having chronic, inexplicable nosebleeds? Is that information going to make him worry less? Kind of doubtful.

"I can't tell you." He drops his arms and turns to walk away from her in an irate huff. She grabs his arm again, says "Not yet. But I will. I promise, okay? I just need time to figure this out."

He eyes her with mistrust but she knows he won't deny her. He doesn't have it in him to hold onto grudges; that's her M.O. He'll accept her words as truth because she is telling him the truth. He'll see that in her eyes.

"Okay." He relents, the muscle beneath her fingers relaxes. She hadn't even noticed how tense he'd been until then. "But I'm going to hold you to that promise, Sis." She opens her mouth and he says, "I know, I know. You're not my sister."

The retort turns to a laugh. When did she start finding Snow funny? She remembers the intense dislike that she'd had for him before, but for the life of her she can't remember why. Snow may be a delusional ass at times, but he is a genuinely kind-hearted and decent person. Why didn't she see that before? All Serah wanted was for her sister to like her boyfriend; and instead of trying to get along with him for Serah's sake, Lightning formed an unfavorable opinion of Snow and refused to change it. She is ashamed of her terrible behavior. What kind of person won't bend even the slightest bit if it might make their sister happy? She hopes she'll get the chance to tell Serah how sorry she feels.

Snow turns to leave. "Snow?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to go to that meadow I found yesterday to work out my arm a bit. Would you like to come with me?" She doesn't know why she's asking, but she feels that she needs to make amends for her cruelty yesterday. She is tired of hurting him to make herself feel better. She had planned for privacy today, to sort through everything. She has a lot to figure out. But she knows that she hurt him yesterday by refusing his company and she hopes he will let her make amends.

He gives her one of his winning smiles: all white teeth and sparkling eyes. "Yeah. That sounds good, Sis."

She feels so much better that she forgets to dispute the nickname.

* * *

TBC...

Notes: I like Vanille. This chapter is as nasty as it gets. I know that there's a Star Wars reference in here somewhere. I couldn't resist it. Answers to any and all questions are forthcoming. I promise


	7. Gesture Without Motion

Sorry that this was late. Real life kicked my ass this weekend and I've gotten less than nine hours of sleep total over the past four days. I wanted to re-read and revise this chapter, but my brain isn't working right now. On the up side, the exhaustion might inform my writing a few chapters down. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Thank you to those that reviewed, and to all those reading along quietly. I hope that you like this next installment.

Please NOTE: I've raised the rating for straight up gore. I'm giving warning, which I don't usually do. There's no more violence in this chapter than in others and the increased rating may not be necessary. I'm trying to err on the side of caution. No sex. Sorry if you're disappointed.

-Gesture without Motion-

The walk to the meadow is peaceful. Snow walks beside her rather than acting as rearguard, and the two set an unhurried pace. Lightning enjoys the novelty of a stroll; they have done nothing but sneak, march and run for endless weeks now. Even longer for her, as soldiers are not in the habit of ambling along. It's been a very long time since she's done anything for leisure's sake. Her birthday had been the last attempt to enjoy herself, to kick back and relax with her sister. That turned out to be a spectacular failure.

So Lightning does her best to relax and just absorb her surroundings. She feels the warmth of the sun on her skin; the chill bite of the morning air raises gooseflesh on her arms. The breeze carries the songs of native insects and birds, and the perfumes of thousands of strange flowers. The world seems peaceful, and despite the huge disparity between her home and this wild, foreign world, there is something so familiar in these quiet early hours. Almost déjà vu. The morning is as close to perfect as she can imagine. She glances at Snow, sees her own contentment mirrored in his expression. The mood between them is calm and she refuses to break it. It is apparent that he feels the same reluctance as he remains quiet (a unique and noteworthy event) and the two share a happy and comfortable silence until they arrive at their destination.

"Wow. This is really nice," Snow says in reference to the meadow. While she'd known what to expect, she is still taken aback by the raw beauty and vibrant colors.

"It's beautiful," Lightning corrects, not bothering to conceal her admiration for the landscape. Gran Pulse is exquisite. It bothers her that she's spent so long fearing it like it is some sort of nightmare world; nothing could be farther from the truth. Lightning resents the fal'Cie a little more for their blatant interference in the lives of the humans of both worlds. What might have been if the fal'Cie had left humans alone? Would the people of Cocoon and Gran Pulse still have been enemies?

She dismisses the line of thought as whimsical and unimportant. 'What might have been' makes no difference and it is a waste of time to consider 'could haves' and 'should haves.' She has too many real problems to consider. Worrying about things that never happened and never will is self-indulgent and distracting. Perhaps when this whole mess is finished she'll have time to ponder possibilities. Although she doubts it.

She stops and drops her pack, pulls out the bloody rag and a lighter. She lights the handkerchief, watches it as the fire consumes and incinerates it. The immolation of the evidence of the previous night's lapse goes a long way toward restoring Lightning's peace of mind. Each lick of the flames erases a bit more until she can almost believe that it never happened. She knows the relief is an illusion, but illusions are all she has left.

"So is all that blood going to be included in your explanation?" Snow stands beside her now. He watches her while she watches the fire reduce the handkerchief to ash.

"Yes. I guess." She says, not looking at him.

"You guess?" She hears the annoyance in his voice.

"I mean, this is from a nosebleed. There isn't really much else to say about it." Not a complete lie, as she really has no idea what the nosebleeds portend.

"That's the second nosebleed in a week, Sis. I remember the one in the ruins that day."

She heaves a hard breath. She knew if she gave him an inch he'd take the whole damn planet. "Let's table this conversation for now." He's digging in his heels so she adds, "please?" The please is a cheap shot. He can't refuse it. "I promised I'd tell you, and I will. You told me you'd wait. It won't be long." And it won't be long. She is going to have to act soon. It is apparent now that, whatever is happening to her, it is not going away. It is only getting worse with each passing day.

"Alright. It better be a damn good explanation." Snow laying down the law for her sparks her rebellious streak. She has to choke down her automatic retort.

She buries the ashes of the fire and wipes her hands off on her cloak. She roots around in her pack for a painkiller and takes a half of a pill as a precautionary measure. She plans to do today what she wanted to do yesterday and knows that she'll probably hurt for it later. The painkiller should help minimize the damage.

"Are you in pain?" Snow asks. He looks concerned again.

"Nope. And this is to make sure that I'm not later." She takes a sip of water. "I need to build up my strength and endurance. I'm not going to do that sitting on my ass."

"You shouldn't push yourself too hard." Caution from Snow. Talk about a rarity.

"We're running out of time." _I'm running out of time. _Lightning says as she unsnaps her holsters. "We need to get moving again. I can't afford to baby myself. " She unclasps her cloak and lays it down, places her weapons on top of it.

"What are you doing?" The tone is confused.

"I'm going to limber up with a few katas. I need to clear my head and focus."

"Oh" he sounds impressed or maybe surprised. "That sounds like a plan." He strips off his coat, stands behind her. She stands breathing for a moment, does her best to let the world fall away, to concentrate only on her breathing and heartbeat. When she feels ready, she bows and begins.

She moves through the first form, slow and fluid, feels the muscles in her body contract and relax with each movement. Her forearm twinges as she bends and flexes her arm in punches and blocks. The world falls away, and all reality boils down to precise motions and careful breathing. Worry melts and pain fades. There is no war, no Focus, no impending doom; there is no mystery illness destroying her bit by bit. There is only the precision of muscle memory and the satisfaction of serenity.

She works her way through forms until she feels her mind and body sync up. Her breathing evens into proper rhythms and for the first time in more than a month, Lightning feels in balance. Serene. She continues through another kata, far more strenuous and advanced than she'd planned to undertake today in her weakened and injured state. She just feels so good at having achieved some sort of peace that she refuses to let it end too soon. She feels in harmony for the first time since her birthday.

She bows to complete the kata, then relaxes. She finds that Snow has been moving with her, following her through the forms. She sees a reflection of her own peace in his eyes and has a strange impulse.

"Want to try one together?" Her question takes both of them by surprise. Embu are excellent training tools, but she hadn't planned to complete one today, and never expected to ask Snow to perform one with her. His total lack of anything remotely resembling discipline would have made the idea absurd to her before. Now, after spending weeks with him, she realizes that what she'd taken for a lack of discipline more closely resembles a creativity of style. She has come to understand, respect and even appreciate his technique.

"Sure." The look on his face is one of supreme satisfaction. It is a look that used to annoy her. Sometimes, it still does.

A big part of her training as a soldier had been in various hand to hand combat techniques. She's spent years studying and practicing a variety of disciplines, and until the Purge, spent hours a day training. She knows it is unlikely that Snow has had her degree of formal training, but she's found that what he lacks in training, he more than makes up for in raw talent. He would be far more suited to a freestyle spar, but she knows she's not ready. She knows that pushing herself too hard will set her recovery back. She'll see how she does today with the embu, and if it goes well, she'll plan to spar tomorrow. Perhaps she'll ask Fang. The woman will present a good challenge; she, unlike Snow, won't hold back.

They stand facing one another, and bow. He lets her set the speed. She keeps it slow to start then speeds up as they progress. He keeps pace with her, smiling at her like a kid as he blocks and hits, retreats and advances. No discipline at all, which is no shock. Still, he is very good, she'll give him that. He looks so happy that she wants to smile back at him. She does not.

Her peripheral vision vanishes, creates a shrinking tunnel. The nausea hits her next; then a blinding dizziness. She loses her place, misses a step and a block and catches a hard fist to the sternum. The sharp pain steals her air, sends her flying. She lays supine on the ground while the world spins. She's still trying to catch her breath and hold her gorge when a face blocks her view of the sky. She knows this person. He is very familiar but the place where his name should be in her memory is vacant. She searches for a moment before giving up.

"Oh god! Lightning? Oh god." She looks at the sky, doesn't see any clouds. Why would he be talking about Lightning? What's going on? She wants to ask him but she still hasn't caught her breath.

"I'm sorry. I should never have agreed to work out with you." His hand is on her cheek, tapping. "What were you thinking, trusting me?"

Memory returns a moment before her peripheral vision. The void in her mind disappears and allows her to recall the name of the man beside her. _Snow._ Snow looks and sounds broken. She pats the fingers on her face. "I'm alright. Help me up."

"You're not alright." He slips his hand behind her back and pulls. The world tilts a bit as he pulls her vertical. Her stomach clenches and resettles. "I just knocked you twelve feet onto your ass. "

_Yes he did. How humiliating!_ She rubs her sternum where she took the hit. _That's going to leave a mark. _"I'm fine. It wasn't your fault."

"Stop it, Lightning." _No nicknames. He really is upset._ "How bad is it?" He watches her hand rub over her sternum.

"Snow!" He meets her eyes. "I'm fine and it wasn't your fault." He opens his mouth to protest but she cuts him off. "You know that conversation we were going to have." He nods. "It looks like we're going to have to have it sooner rather than later."

"What are you talking about?" He looks as confused as she feels.

"Later, okay. Just help me up." He pulls her to her feet, holds her shoulders until he's sure she won't fall over. " I want to get back to my workout." He grabs her by her good arm.

"Hell no, Sis! We're going back to camp so Vanille can have a look at you. I know how hard I hit you and I want to make sure I didn't do any damage."

She rubs at her sternum again. She is definitely bruised, but she'd classify the feeling as discomfort rather than pain. She's pretty sure that the only injury she's sustained is to her pride. Still, Snow has a point. If there is any damage, she needs to take care of it now. Pride can be a good weapon but it is a double edged sword: wield it wrong and it will cut you. She could use a potion and a once over to make sure nothing is cracked. The last thing she needs is another injury to set her back.

"You hit like a behemoth, you know that?" She tries to lighten the mood. The look on his face tells her she's failed.

"Yeah, ordinarily I might take that as a compliment. If it wasn't for the fact that I hit you a few days after you nearly DIED in my arms."

So, humor is a no go then.

"Don't worry about it." She bends over to collect her things. Straps her weapons back on, fastens her cloak. "Just consider it payback for all those times I punched you."

"That's not funny."

"Oh come on." She slings her pack on and starts to walk back towards camp. He walks beside her, closer than is strictly necessary. She lets him, knowing that he's afraid that she might collapse. His fear is not entirely unfounded. She feels more than a little green around the gills. "Don't tell me that you've never thought about it. A little payback for all those fat lips and black eyes. Hell, I deserve it."

"I don't hit girls." She stops moving and stares. He takes two steps before turning around and looking at her with concern. "What?"

"You did **not** just call me a girl." She cannot believe that he had the balls to say that to her. His concerned expression morphs into a smirk. "A girl? Really? You do realize that I could drop kick you back to Cocoon from here, right? And you're calling me a GIRL?"

"A woman?" He tries, smirk spreading into a small smile.

"You're an ass!" That makes him laugh. Finally.

"Yeah. But that's part of my charm."

"Oh, is that what they're calling it these days?" _Jerk._

"Alright, I get it! You're a soldier. A warrior! Superior in all ways. I bow before your skills. Now let's get a move on. It's getting on lunchtime and I'm starved." They start walking again, mood lighter than it has been in a while. "Hey woman, do you think that you can make me some food? Maybe a pie?"

"That's it!" She punches him in his arm, but keeps it playful.

"Ouch." He rubs his arm. "You know what, Sis? You hit like a girl."

"Don't press your luck, hero." He belly laughs at that.

* * *

Vanille 'tsks' at Lightning before assuring her (and Snow) that there are no fractures or permanent damage. "You really need to take it a little slower, Lightning. You might not be so lucky next time." Hope is giving Snow the evil eye from the other side of the camp, but he's keeping his mouth shut for which she is glad. She has enough problems without playing referee again between Hope and Snow.

"I didn't know you liked it rough, Hero," Fang says, nudging Snow's arm. "I like a bit of rough and tumble myself. Care to have a go?"

Sazh laughs, shaking his head. "Uh uh." he says, "I wouldn't do that if I were you, man. That is one tough lady. She will kick your hero ass."

"Aren't you a sweet talker!" Fang looks pleased. "Have I told you that you're my very favorite, Sazh?"

"No. Probably because that's a load of bull." Fang laughs.

"Yeah? Maybe." she admits. "But you're definitely climbing the ranks."

Vanille ignores the entire conversation, too busy rooting around in her bag of tricks to comment. She pulls out a bottle. "Okay, this is a little stronger than the usual potion. Just one spoonful with meals. Three times a day for two days and that nasty bruise will be gone."

"Why not a spell?" Hope asks.

"Too much magic is not good. It really should only be used for emergencies. The body needs to heal itself. Forcing the issue too often can cause other problems." _Other problems?_

"Really? I didn't know that." Hope stares at Vanille with open admiration, totally rapt. He is smitten. It should be cute. Lightning only sees the pain it might cause him and can't help but worry. "Why are potions different?"

"That's a good question, Hope." She smiles at him like a proud teacher. "Potions are more like medicine. They help the body heal itself. You don't want too many of them either though. Like all medicines, there is such a thing as too much, which is why we prescribe doses."

Lightning, having had enough doctoring and schooling, starts to get up. Vanille stops her saying, "Wait a minute. I'm gonna check your injury and change your bandage. I promise I'll be quick."

True to her word, Vanille has the injury unwrapped and cleaned in minutes. "I'm going to leave it unwrapped for now. The air will do it some good. I'll rewrap it tomorrow before you leave camp. Just apply that salve I gave you. Alright?"

"Thank you, Vanille."

"You're welcome," she giggles.

Lightning goes to sit closer to the fire pit in the center of the camp. The fire has long since gone out now that the sun is up to warm the land. She hates to admit that she feels worn out and tired already. This last injury really stole a tremendous amount of her stamina. Her weakness grates on her. She has always been a fast healer, able to bounce back from injuries and push through the pain. She feels like some sort of green, wet-behind-the-ears amateur.

"Hey. Have you eaten yet?"

She'd been drifting into a reverie. She hadn't even heard Snow approach. _So very off my game._

"Huh?"

"I'll take that as a no." Snow sits beside her on the log. He hands her a piece of bread, a piece of fruit and dried meat. "You better eat all of that."

"Thanks," she mumbles takes a bite of the bread.

"You look tired."

"I am," her honesty surprises both of them. She takes a bite of the smoked meat. It tastes good but her stomach is still sour from her episode earlier today. Snow is watching her like a hawk.

"Why don't you catch a nap then?" Snow is hovering. It's getting on her nerves.

"I hate napping." She expects him to argue.

"Alright." He gives up sooner than she'd thought he would. Apparently, he's not in the mood to argue. "Look, I'm going to head out with Fang for a bit."

"Taking her up on that rough and tumble? Be careful. Sazh is right; she'll kick your ass."

"No Sis!" He fakes affront. "I already told you I don't hit girls. What do you take me for?"

"A dumb blond?" she deadpans. He laughs.

"Real nice!"

"By the way, I wouldn't let Fang hear you call her a girl. Not if you want to keep all your male parts attached."

"I'm not afraid of her."

"See? You really are a dumb blond."

"Okay." He holds up his hand in surrender. He stands and all humor evaporates. "Look seriously, eat your lunch take your medicine and rest if you need it."

"Would you stop hovering? I've been taking care of myself for a long time." She enjoys the easy humor that they have between them now, but really can't tolerate the hovering protectiveness that seems to go hand in hand.

"Yeah and you do a hell of a job too what with the mortal injuries and everything." He says as a parting shot. "See you later, Sis."

"I'm not your sister!"

"Sure you are." He retorts as he disappears around a corner.

* * *

_She stands at a parapet of a white tower staring at a cloudless sky. Cocoon hangs overhead, a bright satellite and source of light. The once cherished overhead wonder is now cursed, despised. The tower beneath is filled with frenetic energy and tension. Everyone fears, everyone hates. They run and prepare. _

_The air reeks of fear; terror and anger blanket everything, and everyone. The once perfumed air now smells only of decay. No more songs dance on the breezes. All she hears are screams and drums. The people starve. The people riot. The white walls are splashed, coated with blood. The water is poisoned, polluted. The world is tainted. _

_She burns with a fevered rage. She looks up; the sky is cast in red, not by blood but by fury. Why? She can't-they can't-understand why they've been attacked. Why the hovering world overhead has committed such egregious act. So many dead. Friends, family, all gone. She longs to rend, to wrap her hands around an enemy throat and feel the life drain. Feel the heartbeat pound, then slow, slow, slow, cease. She hates. She kills._

_She is Death. _

* * *

She wakes with no recollection of having fallen asleep. The sun has set; from the depth of darkness and the plummeting temperature she guesses that that it is well past midnight. She sits up to find that she is no longer in the camp. Her heart steps up its pace, beats against her ribcage. Lightning isn't a woman given to fits of hysterical panic. Right now, she thinks maybe she has good reason. Somehow she's lost a half a day.

She suppresses her panic, rolls it up and shoves it down hard. She can lose it later. She needs to focus now and figure out what happened. She racks her brain trying to remember anything. She remembers sparring with Snow, losing her concentration and getting hurt. She remembers heading back to camp, bickering with Snow, eating and closing her eyes to nap. After that, there's nothing. She lifts her hands to rub at her temples, stops before they make contact. They are caked dark and sticky. Confusion slows down her thinking even more. _What...?_

She holds her hands up to get a look at them. Something dark coats them. Mud maybe? Had she been stumbling around in the rain? Did she fall and hit her head? She touches her temple. Her head does hurt, but that's nothing new these days. She feels around the front and back. She can't feel any bumps. She doesn't feel dizzy or nauseated-both telltale signs of a concussion. She has no discernible head injury. She has no explanation.

She needs to get back. Everyone will be worried about her. Hope and Snow are probably frantic. She's been missing for what must be hours now. She stands up and brushes herself off, notices dark stains on her vest. Horror creeps in at the edges of her consciousness.

_It can't be..._

She looks at her hands again. They are coated to the elbows on both sides. Revulsion blossoms at the absolute certainty.

_...and yet it is._

Blood, she knows. Now that her brain has caught on she can smell it. The air reeks of it, is ripe with it. She goes cold with the realization. Her first thought (prayer) is that she's reopened her injury.

She can't see anything past the blood on her arms. She touches the sticky fingers of her left hand to the skin of her forearm. There are no breaks that she can feel, and no pain. The scar has not ruptured and there's no new injury. She has no idea what has happened; what she has done. Her mind blanks but for the need to get back to camp. She needs to find out what has happened. She needs to get away from here! She takes a step and slips, skids, arms pinwheeling to keep her balance. She looks down, sees more blood on the ground. Everywhere! So much blood. It couldn't have come from her. Not if she's still alive to look at it.

Shock seeps in as she realizes that the entire area is drenched in blood; that she is drenched in blood. There are chunks of flesh under her fingernails and stuck in the dried blood on the skin of her legs and arms. Stuck in her teeth. She shakes her head in denial even as the truth becomes apparent. She is covered in the blood, flesh and viscera of some animal. _Oh gods, please let it be an animal!_ She has lost a half a day, wandered off and ripped something apart with her bare hands (and teeth) and she can't remember any of it! She falls to her knees and vomits on the ground. The blood wets her knees and shins, the smell assaults her and brings another wave of nausea.

She retches until she's empty. Her eyes and nose are both running from the incredible force and strain of her purging. Her arms threaten to collapse and send her face first into the blood and puke beneath her. She needs to move, get some distance before that happens. She crawls, squishing and squelching and gagging as she moves. When the grass feels dry beneath her, she pulls herself back to her feet.

Her body shakes so hard she can barely stand up. Her teeth chatter and her heart races. She needs to move, to put as much distance as possible between herself and this massacre. She can't even look at it, let alone imagine how she could have done it.

"What's happening to me?" She says it aloud since there's no one to hear it. She walks, almost falls again when she finds her knees have turned to water. She refuses to land in, or near, that abomination again; refuses to spend another second wallowing in the pulp of some creature. She puts one foot in front of the other until she feels steadier, then picks up her pace, eager to escape from the scene. The scream that has been building inside her threatens to tear loose. She puts her hand over her mouth, feels the tackiness of it against her lips and gags again. She falls to her hands and knees in the grass again and heaves. There is nothing left but hot bile, and her body does its stellar best to press that and her stomach itself out her mouth. She shakes so hard she's afraid she might fly apart. Tears pour from her eyes and there is a growling, wounded sound tearing out of her. She tries to bite down on it but her control is shattered.

"Lightning!" Snow falls to his knees beside her. "Lightning, what happened? Where are you hurt?" She can't look at him. She can't stop her keening. She can't stop shaking enough to pick her head up. His hands flutter over her. Terror radiates from him. "What happened?"

"Don't touch me," she croaks. She's too disgusting. She'll soil him, soil them all. He ignores her, as he always does; he pulls her up to look at her. She can see his shock. _He should be shocked. I'm a monster!_

"Where are you hurt?" He pulls her right forearm up to look at it, eyes searching for any sign of the gaping wound from five nights before.

"I'm not hurt."

_Not hurt, just dying. I'm disappearing. I'm a demon. _

Snow doesn't believe her protest. He runs his hands over her head, down her other arm, searching for the source of the bleeding. "This is not my blood." Her voice quavers. She's stopped crying now, but her body trembles harder. Her teeth are chattering so hard her jaw aches. "I don't know what's happening to me." He stops moving and looks into her eyes.

"It's okay. We'll figure it out. Alright, Sis? I've got you now and we're going to figure this out." He pulls her to her feet, holds her up when her legs fold beneath her. "Let's get you cleaned up."

"I don't... I don't know," she babbles.

"It's alright, Sis. We'll figure it out, okay?" _How can he look at me? How will I ever be able to look at myself?_ "We'll fix this."

"Can't..." _fix? _How do you undo such savagery? How can you clean the stains?

She feels him trembling against her. Or is she shaking so hard that she's rattling his body as well? She can't tell.

She walks without seeing; just concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other and lets Snow guide her. She can't think past the nightmare of her reality; can't move for all the creeping sickness. A flash of a memory hits her and she doubles over to retch again. Snow's arm around her waist is all that keeps her on her feet . She has no more strength. There is nothing left but hot bile and evil inside her. No amount of vomiting will ever purge the spreading darkness.

She looks at her hands again, dark and tacky with remnants of pulverized animal. It's unbearable. She can't stay like this another minute. She can't let anyone else see her in this state! The thought flies out of her mouth.

"I can't let anyone see me like this!" She feels enough repulsion for the whole world. She can't deal with anyone else's right now. What will she say to them? To Hope? _Oh God!_ "You can't let Hope see me like this." The shock may be all he needs to push him over the edge. She can't be the cause. She'll never be able to live with that burden.

"Don't worry, Sis. We're at the lake, okay? We're going to clean you up. You'll be good as new." He lets go of her and she slips to the ground at his feet. She hyperventilates in the dirt. Her chest hurts and she rubs at it, presses her knuckles hard into the bruise on her sternum. The pain gives her a focus, something real to anchor her. She needs to find control again!

Snow grabs her by her elbows and lifts her to her feet. He is now shirtless. His skin is warm against her. She is freezing and trembling and uncomfortable. If she felt anything in the vicinity of rational, she would never tolerate this nonsense. For Snow to see her in such a desperate, pathetic state should be humiliating; she has nothing close to pride at the moment. She has never felt so close to madness as she does right now.

Snow walks her, fully clothed, into the cold water, holds her up while she washes the blood off of her arms, legs and face. She knows she'll never feel clean again. If she could scrub every square inch of skin from her body she still would not feel clean. The filth permeates every molecule of her body now. Water will never wash the stains away. She may look cleaner as the remains slough off her, but the stain on her soul will remain and fester. She rubs at her skin, scratches with fingernails until Snow's hands still hers and take over, rinsing away filth to reveal the pale skin beneath.

Snow turns her around to look at her. He brings his wet hand to her mouth and rubs gently. She follows swiftly with the back of her hand, pressing a brutal fist into her disgusting mouth. He pulls her hand down, holds it in his. "Better." His voice is too gentle. She doesn't deserve it. He nods at her then says, "Your hair. Dunk under the water alright?"

The cold water closing over her head is a shock. She wants to stay there; end all of the atrocities in one deep, cold breath. She feels more sane in the ice cold dark than she has since the Purge. Snow pulls her back up to stand before him. He combs through her hair with his fingers. Hers follow, and she feels and hears hair tearing in their wake. He takes her hands in his again, stilling them from further damage. "All gone. Told you we'd fix it." He whispers, like he's talking to a small child. Or a deadly animal.

The blood on her clothes is going to be more difficult. The whole front of her vest is stained, but there's nothing to be done about it now. She needs to burn it: a ritual purification by fire. It'll have to wait. She consoles herself with the fact that the skin is no longer beneath her nails and the taste of blood is out of her mouth.

She can stand on her own now and she drags herself out of the water. She shivers in the night air until Snow wraps his coat around her. "Alright. You ready to go back?"

She shakes her head. How can she go back? How can she stay with her friends knowing that she's escalated to such brutality? The answer is clear to her now as she watches Snow pull on his shirt. She can't. She is no longer fit for human company. If Snow had been near her when this 'episode' happened, she would either be covered in bits and pieces of him, or he would have been forced to kill her. Could she really take a chance like that? What if it were Hope? What kind of person is she if she continues to expose her friends to this kind of unknown danger? She needs to leave while she's still rational enough to make the choice.

She realizes that Snow is waiting for an answer to his question. She still can't speak; she's afraid that if she opens her mouth she'll never stop screaming. Or vomiting. She knows now what she must do. The certainty makes her feel better. It gives her a focus to stop her mindless flailing. She's ready to act. She nods in answer to Snow's question and he puts his arm around her to help her back to the camp.

They take their time. Perhaps he sets a slow pace in deference to her ruined state. Perhaps he needs time to recover himself. She certainly wouldn't blame him. She shakes, inside and out, although less violently than earlier. Snow is like a wall at her side; a solid, steady presence offering support. She feels a choking gratitude to him for his silent stoicism. Constant Snow. Serah had tried to tell her that, and, as always, she'd refused to listen. _Oh Serah, I understand. I'm sorry! Will I ever get to say that to you?_

Constant Snow. What will she do without him? Without any of them, these strangers who've become a family to her? What is going to happen after she leaves them? Will she degenerate into total savagery? The idea has hysteria bubbling up again. She needs to get control of herself. Her weakness shames her. She thinks about the peace she achieved this morning (_was that really only this morning?_), searches herself for some shred of that balance. She needs to pull herself together. It is bad enough that Snow has seen her in such a pathetic state. There's no way she can fall apart like that in front of the others. In front of Hope.

"How'd you find me?" He pauses long enough that she wonders if he heard her question. Perhaps he's so repulsed he can't bear to speak to her. She wouldn't blame him.

"Luck." He says. "Fang and I got back to the camp and you were gone. No one knew where you went. I told them not to worry, that you'd be fine. When the sun started to set, I came looking for you." He pauses, pondering.

"So are you going to tell me what happened?"

"I can't. I don't know." She hears the hysteria lurking beneath the words.

"Alright, Sis."

She doesn't argue the nickname anymore. If Snow isn't family after everything they've been through, then who is?

* * *

"There you are!"

"Are you alright?"

"What happened to you?"

"You two do know that you're supposed to take your clothes off when you go skinny dipping, yeah?"

"Fang!" Vanille yells.

"What? Everyone's so tense. I thought I'd do something to lighten it up."

Hope walks over to Lightning and hugs her. She holds him for a minute, allows herself the small indulgence. "You're shaking." He mumbles into her shoulder. "What happened?"

"Nothing. I'm just a little cold." She lets go of Hope and holds him at arm's length. He's pale, and a bit stooped with exhaustion, but on the whole he looks good. He'll be okay. Snow will look after him. Lightning promised that she would keep him safe, and there is only one way she can be sure to keep that promise anymore.

She walks over to her bedroll and picks up her satchel. She straps her holster on.

"What's up, Soldier? We got trouble?" Sazh asks her.

"I'm leaving." She says. She's proud of the steadiness in her voice.

"What?" Snow asks. "What do you mean you're leaving?"

"You mean for a walk?" Hope says. He knows that's not what she means. The hurt in his voice sets off a corresponding ache in her.

"I mean I have to leave." She stands tall, glad have some measure of control again. She's going to need her calm rationality in order to walk away.

"You're abandoning me?" Hope whispers. "You promised me you wouldn't abandon me!" He shouts. His eyes shine with unshed tears.

She swallows the lump in her throat. She'd known this would be difficult, but the reality still startles her. "I also promised to protect you. I don't expect you to understand, but that's what I'm doing."

"You're protecting me by leaving? How does that make sense?"

"Hope..."

"No! I...I don't believe you."

She's unprepared for how much that statement hurts. "I understand. But I'm leaving to protect you. To protect you all." She starts off, feeling clearer and better than she has in more than a month. Resolute in her decision. She's doing the right thing here, whether they believe her or not.

"Hey, Lightning!" Snow grabs her arm. "You promised me an explanation." His tone holds a dangerous edge. Snow is irate. "And you're not leaving until I hear it."

* * *

TBC...

I promise I'll try to get the next chapter up soon.


	8. The Widening Gyre

I'm not sure I'm overly thrilled with this chapter, but I've decided that revising it one more time might just put me off writing forever. So, here it is.  
I've decided to shoot for weekly updates for this story from now on. This is looking to be a monster since I'm really not even half way through the story I want to tell.  
Thank you to all who've read, and especially to those who have reviewed. I appreciate the feedback, and it motivates me to keep on plugging away despite the misery that real life has thrown at me (anyone ever had a second degree burn? It really hurts a really lot. I recommend avoiding them at all costs). Some people had some interesting ideas regarding Lightning's condition. So interesting, in fact that it made me think about offshoots.  
Zerogravitychibi suggested I let you know where I stopped playing the game. I've reached as far as Barthandelus in Chapter 11, but have not fought him yet. So anything that happens in the game after that point will not be part of this story as of now. I may not be able to continue resisting playing the game for much longer. I'll keep you updated. Obviously, we're still nowhere near that point in this story (as we're still in Vallis Media.)

-The Widening Gyre-

Lightning eyes the white knuckled fist clamped around her bicep. Snow's bloodless fingers press bruises into the soft flesh inside her arm. She knows empirically that the pressure hurts, but she is still too numb to feel anything. She stares at the fingers, hoping the pain will register and prove that she's not totally gone, but Snow eases his grip before any inkling of pain registers.

"Sorry." He whispers, fingers smoothing over the livid hand print on her arm. He slides his fingers down to hook around her elbow, an anchor rather than a tether now. "Sorry, but you can't expect me to let you go off on your own to die somewhere without knowing exactly why. What will I tell Serah?" He keeps his tone low and even until it cracks on the last word.

She flinches at her sister's name. Invocation of Serah. Snow knows just where to hit to get what he wants. Lightning has never really believed that she would ever see her sister again but part of her had held onto some hope that maybe, one day... But now she knows that, even if Snow is right and Serah will wake up and return in the future, Lightning will not be around to see her. So Snow is right. He'll be the one left behind to explain to Serah her sister's fate.

"Alright." She relents. "you're right." Running away without explanation is a coward's way out. Lightning is many things, but she's no coward. She looks around at the faces of her companions. Fang looks somewhere between bored and put out; Vanille fidgets in obvious discomfort; Sazh pets his chocobo chick, patient; Hope refuses to look at her and Snow exudes anxiety. He hasn't released her arm yet, like he's afraid she might bolt any second. She finds that having five sets of eyes on her makes telling the story even harder. She has no idea where or how to begin. She dives right in.

"I've been...ill since Palumpolum." Ill is the wrong word, she realizes. The problem is, there is no one word that can encompass all the symptoms she displays. She supposes ill is as good a place to begin as any other.

The announcement sparks a series of murmurs and movements. Hope pales and looks at her with wet, wounded eyes. His mouth opens and closes around silence. Snow says, "I knew there was something wrong. I can't believe you didn't say anything."

Lightning waits to see if anyone else is going to comment. No one says anything, but she can see that they are upset and confused in equal measures. She can relate. "I didn't say anything because I didn't know what was happening."

"But now you do?" Sazh prompts. She considers the question before making the admission.

"No." She admits, which sparks another round of frustrated murmurs. She speaks over them. "But the circumstances have changed and I've run out of time to figure it out." She sees their confusion; she shares it. She realizes that she has no choice but to explain at length what has been going on for the past month.

She tells them of the first episode in the shower: the dizziness, the loss of time, the nosebleed. The unconscious self injury. Snow sits down away from the rest of the group, head between his knees, eyes fixed on the floor, hands locked on top of his head. He looks pained. She hates being the cause, but knows there is no way to help it. Hope stands with both arms wrapped around himself, holding on tightly. He's blanched so white he looks like bone. She longs to go to him to ease his distress but she knows she cannot. He needs to hear this story; she needs all her strength to tell it.

She tears her eyes from Hope and focuses on the fire pit as she explains about the random spells of dizziness and nausea since they arrived in Gran Pulse, the lapses of memory, the near total amnesia that directly led to her injury on the plains five days prior. She leaves out some details here and there, smoothes over a few of the rougher spots, and omits at least two events she can think of for the sake of brevity. When she stops speaking everyone sits still and silent. They are waiting for the punch line she realizes. They haven't heard anything yet that indicates why she believes she needs to leave the fold.

Today's events prove impossible to speak about. She feels tongue tied and nauseated just thinking about it; the idea of sharing the horror, of having her friends know how far she has fallen, makes her shake. Snow comes to stand beside her and places a hand at the small of her back in silent support.

"Go on, Sis," he whispers. The nickname warms her, gives her strength. Reminds her that she still has family despite her devolution into a monster.

So she tells them about the twelve hour blackout; explains her last memory of sitting in the camp around lunch. Tells them about returning to consciousness alone, in the darkness, covered in blood. She glosses over the details a bit without losing the substantive relevance. She doesn't see the point in discussing the chunks of flesh under her nails, caught in her teeth. She can't bear to think about the metallic tang of blood coating her tongue or the inside of her mouth, let alone describe it. She feels no reason to describe to them the squelch and squish of pulp beneath her knees as she vomited blood onto the saturated grass.

No, there is no reason to impart the full horror of the event. Thinking about the dried bits of goo flaking off her skin as she'd chafed her hands together sets her stomach churning again and she swallows down the rising gorge of acid. She can't bear to look at them. She looks at them anyway.

Fang and Vanille share a strange look, making her wonder exactly what is on their minds. Do they know something? She finds the idea terrible and hopeful at the same time. Perhaps the two Pulsian women have answers to the indefinable questions in her mind. Sazh looks shaken. Both hands are balled into tight fists. He clenches his jaw so hard that she expects his teeth to crack from the pressure. She lets her eyes wander to Hope. He shakes in his terror. She feels sick to have to cause him more pain after everything he's been through. Unfortunately, the choice is no longer hers to make.

"So you see why I can't stay. Whatever it is that's happening...I've become a threat to you all." Shame overflows, burns her cheeks and chokes her voice. "I wanted to tell you." _Excuses._ "I was hoping I'd have an explanation and a plan of action when I did. But I've run out of time to figure this out. I..." _I'm not fit for human company. "_need to go before I hurt someone." She grabs her pack from the floor and starts to march out of camp. She needs to leave now, before she loses her resolve. She can already feel the cracks in her armor widening. She's going to fly apart any minute.

"Hold up, Soldier." Sazh says. There's an urgency in his tone that stops Lightning in her tracks. She stands rigid, waiting to hear why he's stopped her. "You're not alone in this mess."

She turns to look at him. Waits. Five seconds. Ten.

"What does that mean?" she snaps, frustration bubbling over.

"I've had similar episodes," he looks both uncomfortable and hopeful.

Lightning turns to look at him, waits for the explanation to continue. She feels a reluctant, selfish, terrified brand of hope. Sazh keeps his eyes fixed on the fire pit. He looks as pained as she feels. "Similar how?" She can't imagine that he could have blacked out, wandered off and shredded a living creature beneath the noses of his companions without any of them noticing. She thinks back, tries to remember any period of time where he might have been missing and comes up blank. Although, to be fair, she has been a bit preoccupied.

"The first time was on the Palamecia, when Vanille and I were still in the detention cell. I didn't even realize what was happening at first. It was like falling. Or spinning, maybe. I don't know, I can't really explain it." He pauses. "I was dizzy and disoriented and confused. Like I had no idea where I was or how I got there. Sort of like how you feel after having your bell rung hard," he taps the side of his head in pantomime. "It was over so quick, I didn't think much of it. I don't know, I just figured it was a reaction to a week's worth of stress and grief. And then there were so many other things to worry about that I just...forgot about it."

He sighs, takes a deep drink from his flask. His hands are shaking and he spills some water onto his chicobo. The small bird squawks at the indignity and flies to land on his head, disappearing into his hair.

"We were in Gran Pulse for about a week when it happened again. Only it was different that time. It was worse. I was sitting watch for a few hours. It was late, I was tired. And all of a sudden, I got this horrible pain behind my eyes. My head hurt so badly, I started to cry. Except it wasn't tears. It was blood. It's indescribable, the pressure and the pain. Like someone beat me with a sledgehammer. I felt like I was being hollowed out somehow. Like something tore a hole through my brain, or cored it, like an apple. I don't know how else to explain it. But when it passed, there were things that I didn't know before suddenly in my head. Like I had someone else's memories shoved into my mind by force. And...and there were things that I should remember that I just couldn't." He pauses, choosing his words. "Some of them came back. Eventually. Of course I really don't know what I don't remember. Do I?"

Lightning has a sudden memory of the Elixir, and the strange discomfort that her question yielded.

_/You never do know people.../ _

Now she realizes that he had no idea how he knew how to mix up a potion. He'd never learned anything like it. He'd somehow 'inherited' knowledge of alchemy. What sort of loss could balance out that kind of gain? Does it even work that way? She shudders to think of it.

Sazh pauses, debates speaking further. She recognizes the brand of reluctance he displays as it is a reflection of her own. She can't imagine what would disturb him so much that he would be reluctant to speak of it. Not after the level of depravity she's revealed to them tonight. How bad would things have to be for Sazh to feel that he should muzzle himself? Surely he can't have matched her level of degeneration. Could he?

_/...Even when you live with them it seems./_

Looks like Fang is far wiser than Lightning would ever have believed. She'd summed up the truth of their group dynamic that night in less than fifteen words. It seems now that none of them know each other at all.

"Then a few nights ago, during my watch, I had the worst one yet. It hit fast and hard. I can't even describe the feeling, because there are no words. I mean, pain can't cover it. Dizziness, nausea. None of those words come close to describing how very awful it was. It felt like dying. I wished I was dying, because it would have been a relief. But I didn't die and it just kept getting worse. And afterwards," he pauses, takes a deep breath to collect himself, "I couldn't remember my son's name. It was just...gone," a tear slips down his face before being swiped aside by angry fingers.

"I remembered his face and his smile," there are more tears clogging his voice, "and his laugh. I remembered him turning to crystal in my arms." He looks at his empty arms, lost in his horrible memory. "But I couldn't remember his name," he trails off, unable to continue speaking.

No one speaks; no one can. No one knows what to say to his awful revelation. Vanille goes over to sit beside Sazh to offer whatever small comfort and solace possible. Lightning would like to believe that he'll feel better now that he's unburdened himself, but she knows that there is nothing that can truly help him. He lost his son three times already: once to the fal'Cie, once to the Sanctum, and once to crystal stasis.

Now he has to live with the fear of losing him all over again only this time, when it happens, there won't be anything left for him. Not even a memory! She shivers at the prospect. It's the worst thing she can imagine: the loss of a child. She's lived through a bare shadow of that pain with the loss of a sister that she'd raised. It is a torment that she buries within herself to avoid facing. She can't imagine enduring Sazh's sorrow; the pure loss that the world continues to inflict upon him.

Snow's fingers are digging into her back, tattooing more bruises near her spine. She'd leaned back into him sometime during Sazh's terrible confession, seeking support against the onslaught of Sazh's shared misery. He is now practically holding her up with the palm of one hand. She steps away from him, determined to assert some degree of independence again. She needs to find her center and her long absent strength. Apparently, her friends are going to need it as much as she does.

"I've had things like that happen to me too," Hope confesses. Lightning starts, sickened at the idea that Hope would have to live through anything remotely similar to her own experiences. Or to Sazh's. The idea of him enduring any more pain sparks her anger. The boy has been through so much. _/He's dying a little bit every day./_ Too much for any fourteen year old. More than she had to endure at his age. She longs to go to him, to offer some measure of comfort, but she knows she's still unwelcome. Hope hasn't looked at her since her announcement that she was leaving.

"Nothing as serious as what happened to Light, and no real memory losses. But I've had a few lapses. I lost time, had some headaches. And..." Hope trails off. He rubs his neck, uncomfortable. "you know, other things. But, yeah. I've had them too."

Lightning waits for more information. When none is forthcoming she decides to let it lie and turns to Snow. "What about you, Snow?"

Snow turns and walks out of the circle of firelight, disappears into the fringes of the camp. The hits keep on coming, it seems. Snow, the rock of the group, has his own secrets. Lightning stares after him for a moment before deciding that she'll speak with him in private later. He deserves to come to terms with this nightmare in his own time.

"Fang. Vanille. What about you two? Have you had any similar experiences?" She feels exhausted and frightened. But her mind churns around the new information, assimilating and processing the data. Where before there was only a scary question, there are now a few dreadful answers. She refuses to speak of any of them without more thought.

"No, can't say that I have," Fang says. "But you know that I'm a little bit strange all around," she gestures vaguely to her odd brand. Fang's answer only convinces Lightning of the accuracy of her most unspeakable notion. "What about you Vanille?" Lightning can hear the worry in Fang's tone. It is enough to convince her of the veracity of the other woman's words.

"Uh Unh," she says. Lightning assumes that was a negative response from Fang's relieved expression.

"Okay. Well this...changes things." Leaving before seemed like the only responsible option. Now, she feels adrift again. That she's a danger is undeniable, but is leaving really the solution? If they are all suffering some malady wouldn't it make sense to stick together to find answers? It seems to her now that they have a better chance of saving themselves if they stay together. She puts her belongings down, resolved. "So at least half of us are suffering from the same or similar afflictions."

"What do you think it means Light?" Hope says.

She has her suspicions, but nothing she'll speak aloud yet. "I'm not sure. But now that we know that it's happening, we can start trying to figure it out."

"So you're not going to leave?" Hope asks.

She shakes her head, "No. I'm not going to leave." She gets an armful of relieved fourteen year old. She hugs him tight, more than a little relieved herself. "I'm sorry Hope. I really thought I was doing the right thing."

"I know," he mumbles against her. "You always do the right thing, Light." She can't bring herself to dispute the ridiculous claim. There is no point in rehashing all her faults now; there will be plenty of time for second-guessing later. She'll just accept the boy's faith in her, even if she knows it to be ill-placed. She lets Hope hold onto her for a little longer, then she nudges him away.

"Hope, I need to speak to Snow. Alright?" He pulls a frown. She does some quick thinking to head off any and all bitching. "Can you do me a favor?"

"Sure." His frown disappears but the answer is tentative, like he's not sure if he really wants to agree to something without terms. She doesn't blame him. Her recent actions haven't exactly engendered trust.

"Go see if you can help Vanille with Sazh. He's pretty upset." Upset is an understatement. Lightning knows that Sazh is devastated, but Hope and Vanille both bring out the paternal instincts in him. Taking care of them gives him something to focus on other than his own pain and misery. It might distract him from his pain. Nothing, she knows, will ever ease it.

Hope nods and goes to do as she asks. She watches for a minute to make sure that Sazh isn't going to snap at all the adolescent attention. When he starts petting the chicobo again she walks away, follows Snow into the darkness.

* * *

She finds him sitting on the ground staring at Serah's crystal tear. She approaches and stands beside him but says nothing. This is no comfortable silence. This silence is pregnant with apprehension. She wants to say something, offer the comfort he always offers her. But she is unqualified to offer solace. She wouldn't know where to begin. So she remains stoic and waits for him to speak.

He doesn't disappoint her. She finds that he rarely does. "Hey, sis. Come to pry it out of me?"

"No."

He laughs, a humorless pale shadow of a laugh. "Beat it out of me then?"

_Would that work? _"No. You don't have to tell me anything."

"Don't care, huh?" She hates the defeat in his tone.

"That's crap and you know it," she sighs. _Don't you?_ Doesn't he know that? Hasn't she proven that he matters to her? Perhaps not. She isn't exactly demonstrative with any emotion but anger. Except with Hope. But Snow is all she has left of Serah, just as she is all he has left of her. It makes sense that they'd cleave to one another as tokens of lost love. Has she really done so much damage? "But you gave me time and space. I'm willing to offer the same courtesy. You'll tell me if you want and when you want. I'm okay with that."

He nods and keeps silent for a long time. She figures that he's going to take her up on her offer and keep quiet. He holds the crystal between his thumb and forefinger, rolls it a bit like a coin. "I forgot Serah."

"What?" Not exactly a brilliant reply. The quiet admission stuns her stupid.

"I. Forgot. Serah." He pauses, trying to collect himself. "I mean, there were other things that happened. Headaches and dizzy spells, whatever. What you described minus the nosebleeds, and what Sazh described nearly to the letter. I never thought anything about them. I just figured that I'd taken one too many hits to the head, you know? I'm not exactly careful." He pauses.

"But then last week we were walking, coming back from some ruin or other. I can't even remember where anymore. And I was holding this crystal in my hand," he holds it up to illustrate. "I got kinda...sick. My stomach and my head, and then I looked at the crystal and it was like...maybe this made me sick. And I had no idea what it was, or why I would be holding it. It just...didn't mean anything. At all. So I dropped it. Right there, in the middle of nowhere. Smack between nothing and no place. And I just walked away and left it out on the plain." He clenches his fist around the crystal, knuckles white. "I didn't remember for hours and when I did..." he trails off. "It took me three days to find it."

"Snow..." She starts. She has no idea what to say, what could possibly make this better for him.

"How could I forget her? I mean...I love her so much. She's going to be my wife. We're going to have a family. At least that's the plan, Sis. We were planning a life together. A wonderful life. And I just threw her away like nothing." He stops speaking, clenches his fist around the crystal until blood oozes from between his fingers. "And it scares me, Sis. Because if I forget her so easily, then what does that mean? What kind of person am I?"

She kneels beside him, puts both hands around his fist and tries to pry his fingers open. They won't budge.

"Look at me." He doesn't. "Snow!" He looks up at her, eyes filled. She works at his fingers again, peels them back one at a time until the crystal falls into her waiting hand, coated in a thin layer of his blood. She uses her ruined vest to blot away the blood on his palm until she can see the deep puncture. "You didn't throw her away." She calls up a healing spell, watches the wound close into a crescent scab. "This isn't something that you did." She folds his hand into both of hers, willing him to believe her. "It's not a failure, Snow. This is something that is happening to you." She cups his cheek for a moment, wipes a tear away with her thumb. She buffs the blood from the crystal tear with the corner of her ruined vest. She places the crystal back into his open palm. "It's happening to all of us." She releases his hand, sits beside him on the ground and puts a hand on his shoulder. "You told me before that we'd figure this out. Well now I'm telling you. We're going to figure this out. Together."

He looks at the crystal in his hand. "Together," he whispers. She tries to convince herself the word is not bitter.

* * *

The camp is silent when they return. Lightning looks at the pinched faces of her companions, sees her own feelings mirrored in each one. Everything they've discussed tonight has offered both hope and terror. To know that you alone are deteriorating is isolating and frightening. She had been terrified to the point of suicide earlier tonight. To find out that they share the burden lightens it somewhat. Of course, she also believes that their shared illness points to the origin of the problem. To know all of them are fading? There are only a few possibilities.

"So Soldier, what's your theory? Don't tell me you don't have one." Sazh says.

She shakes her head. She has one dark, appalling idea. It is so terrible that she dare not speak the words aloud. "I'm not really sure."

"That's why it's called a theory." Sazh is in a temper. She's not exactly Miss Happy-Go-Lucky either. Alright, then. If he wants a peep into the horror show that is her brain, then who is she to argue?

"Okay then." Snow joins the group and they all wait for her to speak. "I've been thinking. We've been operating under the assumption that, as l'Cie we have a time limit. A ticking clock. Right?" She pauses, though she does not wait for an answer. "And that time runs down, when the limit 'expires', poof, we become Cie'th. And If we beat that time limit, we become crystals." Lightning says. She starts pacing now as she monologues. She's afraid if she stands still she'll shake and tremble. She needs to stay strong. Her friends are looking to her to be a Soldier: to squash her emotions and to deal with things logically and rationally. So she shuts down her fear and lays it on the line.

"I'm starting to think that assumption is faulty." Hope shrinks into himself. She wishes she could protect him from this. She wishes she could protect them all. But that's never been her job, or her way. She's not the protector. She's a destroyer, so she'll tell it like it is and let someone else do the clean up .

"I think that we're already changing. That all these 'episodes' or whatever are just physical and mental symptoms of a deterioration. Of an...evolution of sorts. That we're turning. Into monsters, or whatever. Becoming..."

Hope jumps up. "Why aren't Vanille and Fang affected?" It's a fair question, and one that she hadn't considered. She's only had a short time to develop her theory. She feels a bit of hope at the inconsistency.

"I don't know. That's why it's only a theory, Hope. " _And one I hope is wrong._

Sazh chimes in. "I don't know. Maybe it's because they were already crystals. They've already done this whole thing and gone through their metamorphosis or whatever you want to call it. Now that its round two, they're subject to different rules. They don't change the way we do anymore."

It sounds reasonable. Then again, magic doesn't obey any laws of reason. Still for the purposes of hypothesizing, she'll take it. Lightning nods. "Maybe. It's possible."

Fang speaks up, "Or maybe your wrong and you just caught some sort of bug from being in Gran Pulse. I mean a new environment has to have all sorts of nasty germs. Right? Things that your bodies aren't used to since you were all living on Cocoon." She looks at Vanille to back her up. Vanille remains silent, though she looks like she's holding back. Lightning makes a mental note to speak privately with her later.

Snow speaks up. "Then why did we start getting sick back on Cocoon?" He looks around desperately. "Did anyone not get sick back on Cocoon?" Lightning watches as they all shake their heads.

"Still, maybe Fang has a point." Sazh says. "We were all in the Pulse Vestige. Right? Maybe we caught something there."

"Maybe." Lightning says. The idea has merit too. A foreign virus or bacterial infection is hardly a happy alternative. She'll have to chalk that up to a possible explanation. Definitely something worth exploring as they search for an answer.

"But you don't believe that," Snow says. "Do you, Sis?"

_No. _"I don't know." _Don't make me say it, Snow. Please. _"There's no way that we're going to know right now. This is just a discussion."

"Brainstorming." Sazh says.

"Exactly," Lightning breathes, thankful for the assist. They need to figure this out before everyone panics. The time for panic is past.

"So, if you're right," Hope exclaims "if we're already changing into Cie'Th, what's the point of all of this? I mean, it was bad enough when we were just l'Cie. We're being hunted. We've been driven from our homes. We have this focus that we have to complete. But at least we were still us. I mean, mostly we were us. I was still me. I still felt like me! I still loved my parents, and my home. But now, if you're right...now we're monsters too! Now we can never go back!"

"Hope..." Lightning starts. She needs to calm him down.

"No! I'm not doing it. What's the point in going on? I mean, I thought we had a chance to fix this. You told me that we were going to fix this!"

"Hey kid!" Snow snaps.

Hope yells right over him. "I thought that we were coming to Gran Pulse to find a cure. To stop this change and to defeat this focus. But if we're already changing. How do we know that we'll even be ourselves? How do we know that we won't just destroy Cocoon as we lose our minds?"

"Hey kid, take it easy." Snow says.

"Easy? How am I supposed to 'take it easy' Snow?"

"Hope, we don't know anything. This is all just a theory." Lightning tries, hoping to calm him.

"No it isn't! You know it's right. I know it's right. I can feel it! Now that we're talking about it, I can feel the changes. We're monsters! We're all going to forget who we are and who we love and what we want and just start destroying everything! Well I won't do it!"

Lightning can feel the charge in the air. She's felt this presence and magic twice already-once on the Scavenger's Trail in the Vile Peaks, and once in the Apse in the Fifth Ark-and she knows that Hope is about to do it again.

"Hope, calm down." He needs to stop or they're going to be fighting off an Eidolon. And by the charge swirling in the atmosphere, it's going to be very powerful. The tiny hairs on her arm and on the back of her neck stand erect, indicating a serious threat. She's not sure that any of them are up to the task of defeating an Eidolon right now. She's pretty damn sure she's not ready for it. She's still sore and exhausted.

"How can I calm down knowing what's going to happen? What **is** happening? How can you ask me to calm down? What is wrong with you?" With the final word of the sentence, Hope screams. Snow is beside him in an instant. He catches the boy before he can hit the ground. Hope is holding his head as the magic around them crescendos and explodes.

The Eidolon that stands over them is the largest she has ever seen. Something inside her _(Odin)_ recognizes the creature. _(Alexander!)_ The name sends a shiver through her. Hope has invoked Alexander! How are they going to defeat this Eidolon? How will they survive it? She's still amazed that they'd survived Bahamut! Alexander stares at them for a long moment lending tension to the already charged atmosphere. Silent anticipation surrounds them, and no one moves. They are all too stunned

When the chaos ensues, Lightning isn't sure why she's surprised. This isn't her first rodeo, after all. She knows that the Eidolon is going to attack, and since she's the one that upset Hope, it's probably going to attack her. Still, when the Eidolon brings down its massive fist at her head, she's shocked immobile.

"Light!"

"Sis!"

"Move, Soldier!"

Fang slams into her and knocks her to the ground, saving her from the devastating hit. "Well don't just stare at it!" she yells. The words have Lightning rolling to her feet and pulling her Edged Carbine in one move. She fires the gun on the move, then hits the switch for her blade. The Eidolon looks pissed at having been denied its kill. It is lining up another shot at her when Fang says, "Are you looking for me?" and follows up with a hard strike to the monster's side.

The Eidolon turns its attention toward Fang for a moment, giving Lightning the opening she needs to move closer for an attack. Snow orbits Hope, determined to keep the boy safe. She's thankful that she doesn't have to worry about him. She's going to have enough problems keeping herself alive. Magic crackles around the boy, as he switches between defensive to offensive spells. Snow yells "It's me you want!" as a distraction. Lightning hears Sazh yell, "Soldier, get down!" and she drops and rolls. Bullets slice the air above her as she tumbles between the Eidolon's legs.

Close quarters fighting is always dangerous; it's downright stupid when her comrades are firing projectiles and hurling magic in her general direction. She needs to widen the distance or she'll be sure to catch a stray bullet or spell. Lightning slices at the backs of the Eidolon's ankles, hoping to hobble it or at least slow it down. She accomplishes neither; it rounds on her, obviously pissed off.

"Hope, this is your Eidolon!" Vanille yells. "You have to get it under control."

"Huh?" Confusion. Stunned immobility. Neither are very encouraging and both are going to get them all killed if he doesn't snap the hell out of his daze!

"It will only yield to you!" Vanille says as she hurls a fireball at the Eidolon.

Lightning manages to dodge a large fist-barely. It hits the ground beside where she stands, close enough to rattle the teeth in her head and the bones in her body. She's winded and exhausted, still far too weak from all the recent traumas to handle a fight of this magnitude. Hell, her work outs were enough to exhaust her! Blood loss, pain and fatigue are a lethal combination; one that just might kill her in the next few minutes. She hurls herself out of the way of another fist, feels the breeze from the blow lift her hair. The ground shakes around her, skewing her equilibrium even further. She contemplates calling on Odin, but is afraid she'll lose control somehow. Controlling the Eidolon always wears her out. She's never attempted to control it when she's so weak. If it rebels against her control _(can it? I don't know)_, they'll have two unbelievably pissed off Eidolons to fight. She can't take the chance.

She needs to get out of arm's reach before she gets smashed. She backs away, unwilling to take her eyes off the attacking monster, Edged Carbine held in defense. Her heel catches on a rock, almost spilling her onto the ground. The slight stumble slows her retreat, gives the monster an easy opening at her.

Fang appears in front of her. "You really are turning into a damsel in distress," Fang grunts as she blocks the blow. "You wanna pick up the pace a bit, Friend? This thing isn't exactly a feather-weight!"

The truth of the other woman's words annoy Lightning enough to spur her back into motion. She needs to get her head in the game here or she's going to get herself or someone else killed. _Unacceptable! _She turns and sprints, leaps onto a boulder to attain a better angle on her target. She switches to gun mode and fires. Her forearm complains and wavers, but adrenaline keeps her steady enough.

The six companions now have the monster surrounded and on the defensive. Lightning resists the urge to hit the frontlines for another attack. She's too weak from her recent injury and recovery to be anything but a liability. She's not used to being relegated to the back ranks, but she has always been willing to fall into line in a skirmish. She's not even close to the top of her game, so she stays the hell back and continues to offer support, hoping that her bullets and spells will be enough to keep her friends alive.

Finally, after what feels like hours but is probably only a few minutes, the beast yields to its new master. Hope. Hope has managed to tame that monster (with a little help from his friends). It disappears at his command, returns to dormancy to await its master's call.

The six of them stand in a circle panting in the ensuing silence. Lightning feels sweat dripping between her shoulders. She is nauseated and dizzy. She feels clammy, weak and exhausted. She knows she is close to the limit of her endurance. She glances at her companions.

Snow is stooped, arm wrapped around his ribs. Vanille holds her head, a thin line of blood tracking down between her fingers to drip onto the ground. Sazh looks tired but otherwise uninjured. Fang has a vivid bruise blossoming across her forehead: a concussion injury from one of the many blows she'd blocked.

Correction: they are all close to their limit.

"Well, that sucked!" Sazh says, breaking the silence and tension in three words.

They erupt into a totally inappropriate fit of laughter and giggles. Lightning must agree with the sentiment. It did suck! They didn't have enough to worry about without having to battle their own demons? Literally? In huge, kickass, monster form?

Snow claps Hope on the shoulder. "Nice work, little man."

"I didn't..."

"You did." Vanille argues. She has already stopped her own bleeding. All that remains is a dark red stain at her hairline.

Lightning steps up. "You were the only one that could have. That came from inside you, Hope. It came at your need." _At the stress that I caused. Good work soldier._

Fang says, "Yeah. Nice job, kid. But let's not do that again anytime soon, okay? I'm beat!" She throws herself onto her back, sprawled, limbs akimbo.

"I'm sorry Light." Hope whispers.

"Don't be sorry, Hope. You didn't do anything wrong." And she knows that. It's just, right now, with a sore, throbbing body and aching Swiss-cheese brain, she's having trouble believing it.

"I almost got everyone killed!" Snow pats Hope's shoulder twice before letting his hand come to rest on it.

"Yeah, well, who hasn't?" Fang says from her prone position. "Don't worry about it. On the bright side, there's only one left to deal with, right?" She sits up and looks at Vanille. "Can you try to hold off a bit for your crisis, love? I can't take much more of this."

* * *

TBC...

Shocked? Disappointed? Completely unsurprised and unimpressed? I'm pretty sure I mentioned at some point my proclivity for canon.


	9. Things Fall Apart the Centre Cannot Hold

Greetings and Salutations. Thanks for the kind reviews. They make recovering from a HUGE, seeping, bleeding, weeping painful burn less awful. Did anyone know that burns get more painful as they heal? I only found out a few days ago when my damaged nerves decided to punish me for inflicting such awful havoc.  
So, here's the next installment. It was short. Then it got L-O-N-G! I was going to split it in half, but I don't know if I'll be able to get one up on time next week. I'll try but no promises.  
If you don't like it, blame pain and painkillers. I've had too much of both in the past week. Advil and antibiotics are burning a hole in my stomach, and darvocet is rotting my brain.

* * *

-Things Fall Apart; The Centre Cannot Hold-

Lightning longs for the blessed relief of sleep almost as much as she fears it. The day has been grueling and she feels haggard and fragile, like one false move might fracture her into a million pieces. She knows she cannot endure another day like this one, just as she knows she has no choice but to endure unending days just like this one. There is no end, no resolution in sight. She knows that there will be no last minute miracle to save them. The ticking clock they've been hearing is as much fal'Cie fallacy as Gran Pulse as the evil archenemy. While there is no way to be positive, all evidence leads her to the conclusion that they are not going to become, but rather are already **becoming**, Cie'th. With each passing moment, with each inhalation, they are changing unalterably and irrevocably into monsters.

The revelation that she was not enduring this metamorphosis alone offers no true comfort. When she'd considered it her affliction alone, she had hope that there was a way in which the others might still be saved, even if that salvation came at the expense of her life. Now, she knows that presumption to be faulty. She knows that they are each bearing their own cross and dealing with the betrayal of their own bodies.

Lightning feels hollow and wrung out. Her eyes burn; her head feels stuffed with cotton. Her senses are dull and her temper is short. Her thoughts are scattered from exhaustion, and she finds it impossible to follow through on any particular line of thought. She desperately needs sleep just as she's desperately determined to avoid it. Her waking life is a nightmare, but her dreams are haunted and violent. They offer her no solace or answers, only more questions.

Lightning knows that they need a plan of action. To lose all hope now is tantamount to death. Or, at least, to metamorphosis. They all need a goal to press the forward, to motivate them onward; something that can act as counterpoint to their 'focus.' She refuses to surrender without a fight.

"What was it like?" The soft question startles her. She's just happy that she manages to stifle the flinch.

Hope sits beside her, waiting for an answer. Lightning is too tired to be concerned that the boy has managed to sneak up on her. Odds are there was no sneaking involved. He probably just stomped over to her and huffed as he sat down. He is as noisy as every other teenager she's ever met, and he hasn't managed to sneak up on anything yet. Except her, apparently. Her senses are so dull now that she probably wouldn't notice a meteor smashing into Gran Pulse. Actually, a meteor might be helpful right about now...

"Light?"

He'd asked her a question. Her mind is so tattered that she can't even remember what it is. So sad.

"I'm sorry?"

"What was it like?" _What was what like? _Had she missed a chunk of conversation? She wouldn't be entirely surprised at this point.

"I don't understand." The admission is hard. "What are you talking about?"

"I mean, you said it was awful." _Oh no. _She sucks in a breath, catching on to his train of thought. "Tonight, when you woke up alone." She's shaking her head now. She can't think about this.

"Hope, please." _Don't make me think about this again._

"I mean, it's not like you've never killed anything before, right?" _Please!_ She feels her tenuous grip on her control slip. Her heart jackhammers against her ribcage. The urge to flee nearly overwhelms her. Muscles tense and tremble with adrenaline as her brain shouts at her to 'get the hell out of here right now!' It is the fear in Hope's eyes that keeps her in place.

"It's not the same." She has no idea how she keeps her voice so steady when she's screaming inside. "Not at all."

"I know, but..."

"**Not at all**, Hope," she snaps. He looks stricken. She curses herself and tries again. She pitches her voice lower, softer. "You just have to trust me, okay?"

"O-Okay," he stammers. It's obvious he doesn't understand. She can't blame him. She did not include the worst details _(blood in her mouth, flesh in her teeth)_ in her explanation. If she has her way, he'll never know exactly how horrible uncontrollable, mindless killing can be. She'll do anything possible to protect him from the awful knowledge of that experience. "It's just...I'm scared."

She gets it now. He's trying to intellectualize the event, make it less horrible just in case it should happen to him. She wishes that it were that simple; that she could rationalize her blackout massacre as just another dead animal. Just another kill. She's always said that a target's a target, right?

Wrong.

She slides over to him, puts her arm around him. She still feels too dirty to touch him. Unworthy. But he needs comfort, and unfortunately for him, he trusts her to provide it. He only really looks to her for comfort. And that dependence had initially made her feel burdened by him; then protective of him; now she feels blessed by him. His faith in her is the only sane thing in her life any more. She holds him, offering and drawing comfort at the same time.

"I'm scared too," she confides. Her fear is not exactly a state secret, but she's unsure if she should reveal it to him. He's so fragile now, and she's not sure if telling him that she's scared will make things better or worse. He looks to her for strength and direction and right now she has neither.

She decides her gamble pays off when she feels Hope relax against her.

"Do you think that we'll be okay?"

_No._

She wants to lie to him, tell him they'll be fine, but knows how pale it will sound. The truth will bleed through her words and the blatant lie will not only not offer comfort, it will probably make him feel worse. She gives honesty a try.

"I don't know." Hope looks devastated. "But we're not going to give up."

Hope trembles, but remains quiet. He puts his head on her shoulder and closes his eyes. She holds him as he drifts off and slumps against her. She slides away and guides Hope down, pillows his sleeping head on her thigh. She weaves her fingers through the thick platinum of his hair as she stares into the dancing, flickering flames of firelight; his rhythmic exhalations ghost warm and moist over the freshly healed skin of her forearm. The fire mesmerizes her, numbs her, dulls her senses further. Hope's breathing is peaceful and even as he sleeps, somehow keeping time with the crackles and snaps of the camp fire. Lightning blinks, drags her eyes open again and concentrates on the fire. Her eyelids lower, and she fights them, pulls them open again. She refuses to fall asleep.

Refuses...

"How you holding up?"

She startles, her eyes shooting open. When had she shut them? She blinks aborted sleep from her eyes.

"Sorry. Did I wake you?" Snow says. He sits at arm's length beside her, eyes shifting between her face and the camp fire.

"No. I was just resting my eyes." A wide yawn muffles the last word, making her feel foolish. Still, it's not really a lie. At most, she'd dozed off. She definitely had not been sleeping. She refuses to sleep.

"Have you tried to sleep at all?"

"No." She looks down at Hope's head, twists a lock of hair between her fingers. "I'm afraid to sleep," she admits.

"Yeah." He agrees. "I can understand that." She eyes him for a long minute, notices for the first time the puffiness of his eyelids, the near bruised skin underneath them, the red rimming. He hasn't been sleeping either. She's been so preoccupied with her own problems that she'd missed the signs written clearly on his face. What else had she missed in the past weeks?

"Why didn't you say anything?" The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them. She realizes the hypocrisy in asking that question considering her own obfuscation.

He turns bloodshot blue eyes to her. "Why didn't you say anything, Sis?" She wonders the same thing now, though she's positive she'd had excellent reasons for holding her peace. All of those reasons fall flat now that the secret is out.

She gives up trying to come up with a reasonable answer and says, "What can I say? I guess I'm just a secretive bitch."

He bursts out a loud snort. She puts her finger to her smiling lips to shush him, checks the sleeping boy to make sure he's undisturbed. When she glances back up, Snow has his right fist at his mouth as a gag, and his left hand across his stomach. "Don't make me laugh, Sis." He snorts from behind his fist. "I'm still sore from today."

"Sorry." She says and then catches up with him. "I didn't know you got hurt in the fight with that Eidolon. Is it bad?"

"Huh? Oh, no. Not then. From earlier."

Earlier? She's the one that took a fist in the meadow, right? They came back to camp then...ah! Then she remembers he went out with Fang while she'd...well. Curiosity peaked, she says "So you really did take Fang up on that rough and tumble?"

"No, Lightning!" he huffs, totally exasperated.

"Did you call her a girl? I told you she'd kick your ass." She goads.

"No!" She finds these verbal spars with Snow fun. She can't help but tease him just to watch him sputter.

"So-not such a dumb blond after all." He shakes his head.

"Sis! No. Do you want to hear the actual story?" He says with a smile in his voice.

She pauses for dramatic effect. "I guess so."

"You guess so, huh?"

"Yes, Hero. Please do tell. I'm all ears."

"Hero, huh? You've never called me that before. I think I like it!" She wonders when his smirk stopped annoying her.

"I knew you would." She checks on Hope to make sure that their conversation hasn't disturbed him. He snores lightly, deep in a peaceful (she hopes) slumber. "So are you going to tell me or should I keep guessing?"

His humor evaporates in a small huff. "It was no big deal. Fang had an idea that didn't pan out, is all."

_How very vague and elusive._ He's been spending too much time with her. "What idea?"

He puts his hands behind his head, leans back and stares into the fire. He's trying to pull off a casual affect. He fails. "She thought that maybe there'd be a library in that last ruined city we explored. Said she thinks that all the big cities had libraries and archives on Gran Pulse. We figured that we might find some answers."

A library? The idea has great potential. "And?" she prompts.

"And nothing," he spits, tone dripping with frustrated disappointment. "It was buried. If it was ever there to start. We tried digging our way through some of the rubble but it's too unstable. The roof starting caving in and we got the hell out of there."

_Caving in rubble. _"Which expflains why you're sore." She feels nauseated despite the fact that he sits whole and hale beside her. He could have died today while she was out tearing apart a living thing with her bare hands. She shakes her head to dispel the irrational concern. Snow is fine! She has too many real worries to waste time fretting over things that never happened. "Did anything hit you?"

"What, are you worried about my pretty face?"

"No! Just about your already damaged brain. You can't afford too many more hits to the head. You're practically a turnip already."

"Real nice, Sis!" He snarks. "Well there's no need to be concerned about my head. Or my pretty face, for that matter. I didn't get hit by falling debris. I just caught a few bruises in the rush to get the hell out of there." She nods, despite the fact that she doesn't feel better. She lets go of irrational worries and focuses on the true revelation here.

A library or archive. Something that might offer information, give them a clue or starting point. The idea has merit. It's certainly the first solid idea they've had since arriving on Gran Pulse. Since there are no people anywhere on Gran Pulse, perhaps their writings can offer some aid. If the past month has taught Lightning anything of Gran Pulse, it's that it is an old world. A world that looks to have been constructed, unlike Cocoon, primarily by humans, not fal'Cie. Built by an advanced and sophisticated civilization, probably far more knowledgeable than anyone on Cocoon. After all, the fal'Cie control and filter all information on Cocoon in order to keep their 'pets' docile and obedient.

"It's a good idea." She says aloud, still thinking about the secrets and wonders a Pulsian library might hold; what they might learn. There might be nothing. Then again, salvation could lay within. "Definitely worth exploring," she mumbles.

"Yeah, except that if it's there, it's buried under tons of rubble." Snow says. He's staring at her now. She feels his eyes on her, but she's lost in her thoughts. "Sis?"

"Hmm?"

"What are you thinking?" She glances at him. His brow is furrowed and he looks worried. He's getting to know her entirely too well.

"I'm not thinking anything yet," she says, and for once, it is the truth. _Still formulating_. "I'll let you know."

"You'd better."

She glances at him, irritation ramped up. _I'd better?_ "I don't remember you divulging any great secrets either, Hero." She can't tune down the sarcasm. She's too tired to draw boundaries around emotions, and exhaustion tends to act like a pendulum; keeps her vacillating between extremes.

"I know." He concedes. They sit in silence for a bit, both contemplating the dying fire. He breaks the silence (as he always does). "I wanted to," he admits. "I was going to, that night you were injured. When you first woke up."

A memory of his face and the uncomfortable look in his eyes drifts through her mind. She'd known something was off. She wishes now that she had kept quiet and let him speak his mind.

"I wanted to tell you but I was afraid." She stays silent. Fear she can understand. It's been her constant companion over the past weeks. "Afraid that you'd find out that you were right."

She's lost. He has managed to totally lose her in that statement. "Right?"

"That I was never good enough for Serah." She goes cold to her toes, blood draining south at record speed.

"Snow..."

"You were right!" He whispers.

"I was not!" He looks startled by her declaration. _How can he think that?_ "I was so wrong, Snow. How can you not know that? How can you think that I don't know that by now?" Serah had tried to tell her. She'd tried to get Lightning to see the good in this man beside her when she'd only seen him as worthless.

"You were right because I forgot her!"

"You didn't forget her!" She puts a hand on his shoulder, quiets her voice. "Something stole her from you. That's not the same thing." He shakes his head in denial. "Listen to me. Serah loves you. So much." _More than you know._ "And when she wakes up, she's going to expect you to marry her. Like you promised." She tightens her grip on his shoulder. "And I expect that too, do you understand?" He stares down at the ground, refusing to look at her.

"Stop beating yourself up over this, Snow. We need to focus to find a way to save ourselves. Otherwise, we've both broken our word to Serah, and I can't have that." He gives her a long appraising look. She holds his gaze, waits for him to see her sincerity. Hopes that she can convince him of the truth of her words. She's not sure she can stand it if he loses faith now. He's the one that keeps the whole group positive. Whether they believe him or not, his enthusiasm is contagious. They all glom off it.

"I'll make you a deal, sis. I'll let it go if you do?"

"Me?"

"Yeah. Stop beating yourself up over what happened today." She drops her hand from his shoulder and looks away, annoyed that she's been trapped. _Outmaneuvered by a dumb blond._

"It's not the same." He saw her today, covered in chunks of some creature. Something she'd torn apart in a mindless frenzy. How can he expect her to let that go when she can still feel the texture of raw meat in her teeth, and still taste blood on her tongue?

"Sure it is, Light." He takes her hand in his, twines their fingers together. "If what happened to me isn't my fault, then why is what happened to you, yours?" Her lip quivers. She blinks tears from her eyes. She refuses to look at him, refuses to cry. She's angry that he's picking this wound raw again. "Huh?"

"It just is." _Great argument. Really rational._ How can she explain that she should be better than this? She's a soldier. She's trained. She's been responsible for herself and her sister since she hit puberty. She can't accept a total loss of control of both body and mind as anything but a failing on her part. She should be strong enough to overcome this...whatever the hell it is.

"It's not your fault. And you need to stop beating yourself up over it." _Is that even possible?_ "You need to get some sleep." She turns to look at him, feels a tear slip down her cheek.

"I can't."

"You have to." She shakes her head in denial. "It'll be okay, Sis." She looks away again, feels more tears track down her cheeks. She's a wreck. She's falling apart. She knows rationally that her emotions are in such upheaval due to the combined effects of blood-loss, shock and mental and physical exhaustion. For some reason that knowledge offers little comfort. "I've got first watch, and I'll keep an eye on you, okay? Alright? It won't happen again. I won't let it." She's still shaking her head in denial. "Light, you've gotta get some sleep."

"What about you?" He looks as tired as she feels.

"We'll take turns. Okay? I'll take first watch tonight. Then you take watch. And we'll look after each other. You and me."

She shakes her head. Sniffles and hears the disgusting sound of wet mucus slurping around in her nose. She is such a train-wreck! Snow is right. She needs to get some sleep if only to put a leash on her rampaging emotions. She needs some sort of control. "Okay. Deal. We'll look after each other. All of us." She meets his eyes, sees the exhaustion there. "We're all going to look after each other from now on. Now that we know what to look for."

He smiles at her nods in agreement. "Deal. You know what I told Serah when the whole l'Cie thing happened? I told her that a burden shared is a burden halved." He slides closer to her, puts an arm around her and pulls her head onto his shoulder. "I'm not great at math." He snorts at some private joke. "But I'd say six people sharing a burden, that's gotta lighten it even more."

She sniffles. Her ear presses into the sharp edge of his clavicle. She can hear the whoosh of inhalations, the steady thud-thud of his heartbeat. She threads her fingers through Hope's hair, breathes in the scent of Snow, relaxes and closes her eyes. "So, you're not such a dumb blond after all, huh?"

"Ha, Ha!" He whispers. The words vibrate against her cheek, spill as a hot gush of air across her temple and ear. "Go to sleep, Sis. I've got ya." Curled in the warmth of his embrace, she drifts off to sleep.

* * *

_She can't bear to look. The city is dead. The smell of death chokes her, makes her ill. She presses her hands to her belly, feels the movement beneath her fingers: bubbles and flutters signaling the only remaining life within the confines of the city: within the confines of her body. The fist around her heart unclenches, easing pain. She still has something left, but she must protect it. Must protect him, her only hope._

_The air reeks of burning wood and flesh. The Eidolon Ifrit set the city ablaze at her need. The blistering, charred flesh on her arm is a testament to her vicious struggle for dominance over the beast. Carrion birds whirl overhead, pluck eyeballs and tongues from the bloated, purple faces of the uncooked dead. She hears nothing but the crackle of burning fat, the buzzing of insects, the scratching of vermin toenails on stone. Her stomach clenches and her gorge rises._

_A voice whispers, promises vengeance. _Become_, it begs her. _Justice is yours to dole_, it whispers. _Become and you can raze and rend at will_. Her blood burns. She aches to paint herself in the hot lifeblood of her enemies, baptize herself anew to a life of savagery and vengeance. It would be so easy to cave to the desire. Only one more sacrifice, it whispers. required before vengeance is hers. _

_She feels a pulling in her musculosketal system; hears creaking and tearing of connective tissues, snapping and cracking of bone. She screams and howls as the tiny being inside her thrashes, turns bubbles into a vortex within her. She tries to fold up, but her joints are locked. Her body is no longer hers to control. She cannot do this! She is a marionette-she cannot resist it. Her fingernails prick into her pregnant belly, her womb, growing and shredding through..._

* * *

Lightning startles awake. She is sweaty and disoriented, grasping at her stomach to hold in the phantom ooze of blood. She looks at her hands, expecting to see gore splattering them again. They are still_ (unclean)_ the pale color of flesh, devoid of fresh blood. She exhales a shaky breath and rests her hands across her flat, empty abdomen.

Such a strange discomfort and eerie feeling. She feels like there's something important in the disturbing, bizarre dream. She chases the tail end of it, tries to grab onto a tendril but it blows away like ashes on the wind. The memory of the dream fades until nothing remains of it but a vague unease and sense of loss.

She settles her hands across her belly and they bump into soft hair. She cracks an eye and spies the platinum of Hope's head still resting on her thigh. Her leg is dead and cold from the thigh down. Again. Restoration of blood flow is going to hurt. She decides that she needs to stop Hope's atrocious habit of hobbling her while he sleeps. Later. For now, she will let him sleep undisturbed.

She shifts, hears the slurp sound of sweaty flesh peeling away from sweaty flesh. Her leg may be a block of ice but the rest of her body is overheated from the shared body heat. She is plastered to Snow's side, adhered by sweat from hours of sleep. Her left ear is pressed tight to Snow's chest. She can hear the blood and air flow through his body, much as one hears the ocean in a seashell. It is an odd sensation, listening to his deep, rhythmic breathing from both inside and out. He's asleep beneath her cheek in total contradiction of his earlier promise to keep watch.

She finds that she cannot muster anger or disappointment at Snow's lapse; not while the three of them are bundled together like a litter of puppies, warm, safe and contented. The peace of the moment stomps out her near instinctual irritation at the lack of discipline. She stays there for another moment, wrapped in the warmth and comfort of their little make-shift family before she decides that it's time to get up. She can afford no more sleep tonight. Not as long as her dreams haunt and harass her.

She peels her eyes open and sees that it is still full dark out. She has gotten only a few hours of sleep, at most. Still, it was a decent rest despite the lingering discomfort of strange dreams and the physical discomfort caused by her odd sleeping arrangement. She works to extricate herself from the strange configuration of bodies without waking either sleeping man. Hope grumbles and turns over, giving her the opportunity to move her cold, dead leg from beneath his head. She moves without her usual quick grace, stumbling as she tip-toes over and around her sleeping companions. She almost topples over onto a sleeping Hope when she puts pressure on her numb right foot.

She turns to make sure that she hasn't woken either of the two sleeping men with her clumsy escape. Both still sleep on, undisturbed by her departure. Hope shivers in the cool night air. She grabs his empty bedroll from near the fire and spreads it over the sleeping boy. He grumbles, clasps the end of the blanket and curls deeper into it in an unconscious effort to find warmth. She watches Hope sleep for another moment before turning away to find some solitude.

* * *

Lightning stands near the fire, staring into the dancing flames. She'd taken over the watch when Sazh drifted off two hours before. Since Sazh fell asleep, Lightning has been contemplating various changes in the group's structure: mainly, their sleep rotations. What Snow had mentioned earlier about keeping an eye on one another made a great deal of sense. Both she and Sazh have admitted to having 'episodes' while sitting watch. While she understands that past events don't necessarily predict future occurrences, it still seems like erring on the side of caution is the best option. There may never be another 'episode' while on watch. Then again, one of them may lose their minds and massacre their sleeping companions. From her own experience, she knows that these events are intensifying in frequency and severity each time. It's only logical that they partner up on shifts. She will mention her idea tomorrow to everyone. For tonight, she will let everyone rest since she has no intention of sleeping anymore.

The warm solace that had filled her during her short rest evaporates, leaving a growing anxiety in its wake. There are so many things that they must do, and she can't help but think that time is running out faster than sand through an hourglass. She looks up at Cocoon, feels a pull on her like marionette strings. She averts her eyes, feels her heart kick the air from her lungs. The pull of the focus is getting too strong, and her will is eroding chunk by chunk. Their time for dawdling has ended. They need to pick a direction and move on tomorrow morning.

"How are you feeling?" The soft soprano startles Lightning. Lightning glances over her shoulder to find Vanille sitting at the perimeter of the firelight, watching her. The flickering light paints her face in shadows, making the usually bubbly girl look haggard. Vanille looks just as fatigued as Lightning feels despite her earlier protestations.

"I'm...alright. I suppose." Truth be told, she is far from alright. "You?"

Vanille shrugs.

"That's not really an answer." Lightning says. She has so many questions for this girl, but she would rather not press.

"I'm alright. I guess."

Touché. Oh well. If she's going to be coy, Lightning will have to be blunt.

"May I ask you a question?"

"Um..Sure?"

"Do you know anything about what happening to us?" Vanille looks away, convincing Lightning that she does indeed know more than she's willing to say. Lightning walks over and sits beside Vanille. She longs to grab the girl and shake the answers from her. She hopes the desire is exhaustion and not further evidence of her decline. "It's just, it feels like you're holding back."

"You don't have to talk about anything personal if you don't want to. I understand the need for privacy." And she does. She wishes she didn't have to ask any of these questions. But wishing for a thing is useless. They need answers and Vanille may have them. "But we're all flying blind here. We're all deteriorating, and I don't know how much longer I'm going to last. Anything you can tell me..."

"I don't know a lot. Really."

"Okay." Lightning feels dejected. Vanille's evasiveness pisses her off, but she holds fast to the last shreds of her patience. Vanille may play her cards close to the vest, but Lightning doesn't believe she'd withhold valuable information. Perhaps what Lightning had sensed is only the conjuration of a desperate mind. Perhaps there is nothing more to know. Or perhaps she needs to be patient. She waits, hoping silence will coax some answers from the reticent girl.

Vanille doesn't disappoint her. "I remember feeling badly...the last time. I don't know what it meant. Really. It's not like we had anyone to ask about it. But Fang and I came to the same conclusions that you all came to tonight. That we were turning into Cie'th. I was worse. Much farther along than she was." The girl trails off, leaving the story hanging.

Which might explain Fang's near obsession with Vanille's brand. Something inside her must remember the fear even if the memories of the actual events are gone. Like instinct.

"What did you do?" Lightning prompts. Vanilles lips twist into a wry smile.

"We did what we were supposed to. We completed our focus." Bitterness is a foreign sound for Vanille. Lightning finds it disturbing.

"That's it? There's nothing else?" All hope at another solution dies. Lightning has a brief flash of their future, wandering around together until they go mad, forget each other and themselves until their bodies finally catch up to their transforming minds. She shivers.

"I don't know. I wish I did. We didn't find another answer. But I refuse to do it again! It was..."

_Appalling_, Lightning's mind supplies. How is it that nobody has ever realized the true horror the fal'Cie inflict upon humanity? What have they ever done but terrorize and enslave? The implications of everything they've inflicted, of every crime they've committed against humanity still astounds her.

"I'm not sure," Vanille continues, "if we're right about what's happening. But I do have an idea why you seem to be getting sicker faster than the others. Sicker. Is that really the right word?"

"It's as good as any other, I guess." There is no right word. Lightning feels dreadful hope. "Okay. So what's your theory?"

"You've been badly hurt, both mentally and physically since getting your brand." It's not a question, but Vanille pauses as if waiting for a response. Lightning grunts at her.

"Uh huh."

"Well, you remember what Fang told you? About bad shocks speeding the process. That was pretty accurate."

Lightning sees where this is going. "So, my injury...what?"

"Exacerbated, maybe. That might be a good way to explain it. Sped the process up a bit." Lightning nods as she absorbs the new information. Her injury made it worse. "But not just the injury. The grief of what happened to your sister. The stress from keeping your secrets. The worry over what was happening. I think it all contributed and accelerated the process."

Lightning thinks about this for a moment; remembers the clawing grief every time Snow mentioned Serah, the spiking anger and sickening guilt; the acidic worry over dizziness, nosebleeds, headaches gnawing at her. The nightmares that have plagued her since the Purge.

"I guess that makes sense," she says.

"And that's not all."

_Not all?_ That isn't enough? "What does that mean?"

"Magic. Magic is fal'Cie power. Using it, or having it used on you...accelerates it all." It takes a moment before she catches up. When realization dawns, it's like fireworks exploding in her mind, and she knows exactly where this conversation is going. Healing spells. Vanille had said something to Hope about magic. _/The body needs to heal itself. Forcing the issue too often can cause other problems./_

"So let me see if I have this straight. Using fal'Cie powers makes them grow."

"Uh huh."

"And as they get stronger, we become stronger l'Cie. But the more powerful l'Cie we become, the closer to metamorphosis we get. Does that sound right?"

"More or less, yeah."

And it all clicks for her. The magic and fighting all foisted upon them by the fal'Cie and their puppets-the Sanctum, the humans, other l'Cie. All meant to hone them into better weapons. "Like the Arks," she mutters.

"Right!" And she sounds relieved while Lightning just feels ill. "Like the Arks! They force us to grow our powers."

_To turn us into perfect little weapons._ And as they get stronger, they lose pieces of themselves and their purposes. So. Powerful weapons, stripped of free will. _Aimed l__oaded guns with no conscience or will. Just waiting for the fal'Cie to pull the trigger. _Lightning tastes the bile on the back of her tongue.

"And at the end of our journey through the Ark, we were stronger." Vanille says. "Our magic was stronger. Our fighting was better. Our teamwork was better. We became more efficient. And our brands..."

"Were changed. They were..." Lightning finishes. She can see them in her mind now. Each of them a little larger, a little more pronounced. Little did they know that in fighting for their lives and freedom, they'd succeeded only in expediting their deaths and tightening their bonds. "Evolved," she spits, angry at her own stupidity. How could she not have seen before? How, now that the bars of her cage are so evident? Bars etched into flesh and blood and bone, stronger than any prison that humans could ever construct.

"Anyway, this isn't the point. There's no reason to dwell on our powers. What's done is done now. The only thing you can affect is the future. You need to be careful now. Okay? I mean, I don't know if I'm right. But it's not worth taking the chance. We can't stop the process, but we don't have to hurry it along either. I don't know how many more traumas your body can endure before..."

"Before I change completely." Lightning finishes. She feels cold, numb. She holds perfectly still as her mind whirls, frantic. Her skin crawls and itches, and she wants to strip it off her in order to be free. Everywhere she turns all she sees are walls, bars, bonds. She clings tight to the scream bubbling up from within her.

"Yeah." Vanille whispers.

She needs to get a hold of herself. Fear is counterproductive at this point and will only lead to more mistakes. She needs to mull over the information and form a plan. Her thoughts shift to Snow and Hope and she feels her panic burble again. What will they do if she tells them? She knows the answer before the question fully forms.

"You can't say anything to the others," she says, proud that her voice remains steady despite her rising anxiety. Lightning looks at Vanille, waits for the girl to meet her eyes. She needs Vanille to understand, and respect her position, even if she doesn't agree. "I'll tell Sazh or Fang, or both maybe. Okay? But you can't tell Snow or Hope about this. Do you understand?"

"But..." Vanille starts.

"They can't know," she insists.

"I don't know Lightning. Secrets haven't done us much good."

_True. _The girl has a valid point. Even still. Snow will feel obligated to protect her. His 'Hero' mentality and his love for Serah will drive him to throw himself between her and every threat. He's incapable of doing anything else. Given the option, she knows he will die to protect her. She refuses to allow that to happen, so she will take the option from him. Period.

"Tell me what good will come from telling them. Give me a good reason and I'll do it. What can they do for me?"

"I..."

"Look, I'll tell you what I'm afraid will happen. I'm afraid that they'll worry about me when they need to worry about themselves. And one, or the other will try to keep me from getting hurt and they'll get themselves hurt or killed. I can't let that happen. And what if one of them does get hurt? Then there'll be two of us on the fast-track to Cie'th-hood or whatever is happening. What good will that do us? They don't need to know. It'll only upset them, and I'm tired of upsetting them."

Vanille looks pained, but Lightning can tell she's caving. "Please Vanille." Vanille still looks unconvinced. "Please." She repeats.

Vanille exhales a heavy breath and Lightning knows she's won. "Alright. For now."

"Thank you!" she breathes. She lets her gaze drift over to where Snow and Hope are resting. Hope now lays in the spot Lightning vacated beside Snow, curled mummy-tight in his blanket. Lying to Hope and Snow bothers her. With Serah gone, they are the closest thing she has to a family. She cares for the others, but she loves them and will do anything in her power to keep them safe. She and Snow promised to look after one another, and watch over Hope. She knows now that she can't truly protect Hope; but that's not going to stop her from trying her damnedest. She made a promise to him and herself to look after him in Palumpolum. And that's exactly what she's doing.

_/I'll try to watch out for you too./ _

Hope's promise to her. That promise from Palompolum. Hope will do everything he can to keep his word. She knows it. She can't have Hope worrying about her when he withers day by day. No. That promise will be the death of him if he knows the truth now.

_The death of him. _Something nags at her. There's something else, something important, here in this revelation. Something she should see, but her dull mind can't catch the thought.

_/He's dying a little bit every day./_

Dread fills her, sucks all the heat from her body and sets her shaking. _Oh no!_ Is this the answer? The reason that Hope is failing? Is this what's killing Hope? Using his magic to heal them? To heal her? Is she the reason that Hope is diminishing while everyone else stagnates?

"Hope's magic." She says and Vanille looks at her. "Is that what's killing him?"

"What?"

"Don't tell me that you haven't noticed how...frail he is. Snow and I thought that it was just...everything. His mother's death. Being torn from his home. Being here in Gran Pulse. But is it his magic?"

"I don't know if it's the magic. I mean, shock is a possibility. Like Fang said." Vanille shakes her head.

"Yes, I know. But if being on the receiving end of healing spells can speed up this whole horrible metamorphosis, then what exactly would casting them do?"

"Magic is all demanding, physically and mentally. It takes control to channel it. It takes strength of will to manipulate it without destroying yourself. And healing is...harder than other magic. More personal and demanding." Vanille pales, like the thought has never occurred to her before now. "It takes a piece of the caster where other spells don't. It requires the healer to give something of themselves in offering. That's why so few l'Cie ever really excel at it. To become a healer is to sacrifice one's own strength and stamina in order to bolster others. It's a...sacrifice. And some people deteriorate quickly because they don't find balance in their bodies and their powers. It's why we're supposed to practice."

"So you're saying that it's possible that Hope is failing because he's healing us." _Healing me! _She rubs at her now aching head. She hears Fang's voice whisper in her mind.

_/Poor kid was near hysterical when he saw you tonight. Wouldn't listen to Sazh or Snow, just cast every damn spell he could until he exhausted himself./_

"But everything has consequences, Lightning." Vanille asserts. She looks stricken, like she knows she has miscalculated. She's trying to backpedal . Her instructors from the military had always told her that you can't 'unring the bell.' She's always found the expression curious. Now, watching Vanille tongue tie herself, she understands the expression implicitly.

"All magic. Even just regular fighting. Like your shoulder. Every time you swing your sword, you're hurting yourself. Grating damaged bones together. Wearing away at the injured cartilage." Vanille's small, pale fingers rest feather-light on her damaged shoulder to illustrate her point. "And your forearm." Those same fingers lift and gesture, without contact, to her shooting star scar. "Every time you pull the trigger now, you're putting stress on the scar tissue. Possibly putting small tears into the fresh heal. There's nothing we do that doesn't have a consequence. We just have to weigh them."

Lightning ignores Vanille's little pep talk. She's too busy mulling over the crux of the problem to worry about platitudes.

'Wear the healer down.' And Hope has been supplementing them all and fortifying them with his magic for more than a month. He's only a boy and he's been giving his life to them all one drop at a time. She rubs at her eyes, feels the moisture gathering there spill onto her fingers. She can't stand this! She can't do this! How can she do this anymore?

She'd promised herself and Hope that she would protect him. Now she finds out that, by protecting him from physical harm, she's actually sped up his deterioration. So what are her choices now? She can't leave. They'll all come after her if she did. Besides, that would do more harm than good. The betrayal might upset Hope and give him that extra little push down the slippery slope.

If she tells Hope that he can't use his magic for healing anymore, he'll want to know why. She'll be forced into revealing the very details that she's just asked Vanille to conceal. It will prove counter-productive, and probably put her right back where she started. Telling Snow would put her in the same position. He would want to know how she knows what she knows. The detail about her injuries and their contribution to her deterioration would be unavoidable. Then she'd have Snow putting himself on the line to save her.

Unacceptable.

The whole situation makes her sick. Her head pounds and her stomach burns. These fal'Cie have been pulling strings and manipulating people to reach their own ends. If Cid Raines is to be believed, that end is to call back their elusive 'creator.'

A creator who couldn't be bothered with them anymore.

"Lightning!" Vanille's voice startles her from her funk. "You're bleeding!"

Lightning presses her fingers to her nose. They come away warm and sticky with fresh, bright blood. _That's weird. _Vanille presses a rag into her hand. "Here, use this and hold the bridge of your nose." Lightning follows the instructions, still unsure why her nose is bleeding. She hadn't been having an episode. Had she? "This is what I'm talking about, Light! You need to take care of yourself."

"But I didn't..."

"You got yourself all upset. You can't do that anymore!"

Can't get upset? How the hell is she going to manage that? She opens her mouth to argue.

"This bleeding isn't from your nose." _Not from my nose?_ She's confused and muddled. She pulls the cloth away to confirm, feels warmth drip down over her lips and off her chin. She presses the cloth against her nose again and swallows. There's blood on her tongue-hers this time. The taste calls up an impression of flesh tearing in her hands. She recoils. Blood gushes down the back of her throat, gags her. She hacks, spits out a mouthful of bright red blood. "You need to trust me now. Okay?"

Lightning wants to nod, but she's too dizzy. The cloth is getting warmer and wetter in her hands, blood running from under it over her chin, down her throat and into her cleavage. Vanille touches her head, whispers something and sleep reaches up and snatches Lightning before she can protest.

* * *

TBC...

Reviews motivate me.


	10. A Tedious Argument of Insidious Intent

Hey all! Sorry for the delay. I haven't disappeared, died or forgotten about this story. Unfortunately, real life has been a pain in the ass. It kept interrupting, so this chapter may be a bit choppy and disjointed. I've tried to smooth over the rough spots. We'll see. Thank you to all for your well wishes. Burns are terrible injuries. Mine is still nasty and gauze is costing a fortune.  
To my reviewers-thank you so much. You guys are great. You keep me writing despite my frustrations. To my silent readers, I hope you enjoy the next installment.

-A Tedious Argument of Insidious Intent-

_Her arm throbs and itches; the skin is raw and enflamed, raised red and black in a foreign design. Heat radiates from the brand, and nothing she does can quiet her body's immune response. The healing spells the brand has given her only exacerbate the inflammation, so she resigns herself to ignoring and bearing the discomfort._

_With covered markings, she walks through the marketplace, weaving in and out of crowds until she reaches an alley. Something pulls at her, draws her onward: a pull in her brain, her chest, her limbs. To resist causes further pain, so she resigns herself to surrender to the pull. With a quick glance around to confirm secrecy, she folds herself into the darkness between buildings. _

_On tip toes, she pads along the stone wall, tracing fingers over the grainy, gritty surface. The tips of her fingers catch on cracks, follow the lines upwards briefly before continuing onward. The brand on her arm itches, burns, then ignites. She stops moving, moves her arm back and forth until she feels the pull: like puppet strings. She ducks down, brushes away dirt until her fingernails clack against something metallic. She feels blindly around the buried object until she gets a grip, closes her fist and pulls. A metallic ring comes up from the dirt. She stands, grips the large ring in both hands and hoists. And hoists until the world opens beneath her, reveals a gaping maw. _

_She drops into the darkness, letting the heavy wood slam down behind her. She navigates the length of a corridor, everything crystal clear despite the absolute pitch. The air is damp and dank in the manner of cellars everywhere. When she reaches the end of the hall, a yank and pull of her will directs her to the right place to press for entrance._

_The dank of limestone beneath her feet gives way to marble. The dark eeriness of the corridor fades into solemn silence. Her shoes click against the floor as she marches, following the tingle in her arm until it itches then burns. Fingertips trace the ridges and bumps of dusty books, nails catching on spines as she walks her hands across the shelf. The book practically glows as she approaches, though she knows no one else will ever see the shimmer. She reaches, grabs the heavy tome, turns it over to get a look at what has been calling to her; the object of her unconscious obsession._

_One word, embossed in red on the black animal skin cover, sends a shiver up her back. She feels equal measures of awe and horror._

_'Ragnarok.'_

_The spine of the book cracks as she opens it._

* * *

Lightning surfaces from the dream with a gasp. She pants like a drowning victim, sucking in each breath like it might be her last. She holds her eyes closed in an effort to cling to the dream. This one feels different from the others, separated from them in more than just the violence content. She can't pinpoint why or what distinguishes this one. She just knows that something does.

Hushed conversation settles over her, permeates her consciousness. She stills her churning mind long enough to absorb the conversation.

"Don't wake her up."

"We can't afford to wait around anymore. We've gotta get moving."

"Look, she needs her rest. You're not going to wake her up right now."

Fang and Snow are arguing. Even impaired and half unconscious, Lightning knows she's the topic of conversation. She decides to head the argument off at the pass.

"I'm up," she slurs. Her eyelids are stuck together with some sort of dried eye gunk. The return to consciousness has resurrected her headache and Lightning groans at the pain before deciding to ignore it. Lightning wipes the crud out of her eyes as she sits up. Her head floats and does a quick spin on the way up, almost sinking her back into unconsciousness. She braces her boulder of a head in the cup of her palm and waits for the dizziness to pass. When she finally peels open her lids, the world blurs in an indistinguishable amalgamation of light and color. She blinks until her eyes focus. "What's going on?"

"Nothing." Snow says as Fang snaps, "We gotta get a move on."

Lightning nods. The two are about to start arguing again so she heads off the debate. "You're right. I don't know why I slept so long." She rubs at her forehead, trying to summon memories of the previous evening. She remembers speaking with Vanille but the details are grainy, like aged celluloid film. Her head throbs harder and she abandons the effort for now. She doesn't have time to sift through the vast wasteland of her mind. She'll deal with it later.

She stands up, sways from a dizzy spell before steadying herself and bending to retrieve her things.

"Hey, wait a minute." Snow says, grabbing her elbow. "You need to eat something before we leave."

"We don't have time..." Lightning argues, though food and caffeine sound great.

"We've been here for weeks. We can spare an hour." Snow argues. "We could all use some food. Right?"

"I could eat. We need to figure out where we're heading anyway." Sazh says. "I mean, I'm pretty tired of wandering around aimlessly." Snow nods, tension bleeding from his posture.

"Yeah. Does anyone have any ideas where we're gonna go? I mean, what's the plan?" Hope chimes in.

"Yeah. I think a plan is in order." Snow agrees.

"I thought 'Heroes' didn't need plans," Fang snaps. Snow clenches his jaw until Lightning thinks his teeth might crack. _Wow. I thought I was the only one who could piss him off that badly._ Lightning has no idea to what Fang is referring, but from the darkening blue of Snow's eyes and the brightening red of his face, she figures that he sure does.

Before Snow can open his mouth to continue the argument, Sazh says, "Yeah. Well maybe heroes don't need plans, but the rest of us sure as hell do. I've had it with wandering around in hell with no destination." Lightning heaves a sigh. She knows what's coming. Half of her is happy that Sazh is trying to break the tension between Fang and Snow; the other half wants to smack him for choosing this particular method of distraction.

"Hey, funny man! Stow that 'hell' crap, would ya?" Fang snaps.

"Enough!" Lightning snaps. She's not sure what bug crawled up Fang's ass this morning, and frankly, she doesn't care. "We have enough problems without sniping at each other right now." She rubs at her temples for a moment before continuing.

"Fang is right. We need to get going. But Sazh and Snow are right when they say we need a plan. So how about instead of standing here arguing with each other, we just figure out what we're going to do and then do it!"

Five sets of rounded eyes stare at her in the ensuing silence. Lightning isn't sure what the problem is until she feels the warm drip over her top lip. She wipes the back of her hand under her nose and sees the red smear streaked across it.

"Right then," Fang breaks the silence. "That sounds like a plan. Sazh and I are going to pack up the whole camp. Vanille, why don't you..." She gestures vaguely at Lightning, grabs Sazh by the arm and hauls him off to help her.

"Sis?"

"Light?"

"I'm alright. It's no big deal. See, it's already stopped." Hope and Snow both stare at her. Vanille comes over with a handkerchief and gives her a reproachful look.

"I'm alright," she repeats.

"Uh huh," Vanille agrees in a manner that sounds completely disapproving and contrary without being sarcastic. It's strange and sort of impressive. "You need to sit down for a minute and drink this."

Snow is at her side, pressing her down onto the log almost before Vanille finishes speaking. Lightning is too dazed to worry about being manhandled right now, though she'll be sure to take issue with it later. She takes a steaming cup from Vanille. "What is it?" She sniffs the rising steam, smells spice and something like mint. "Coffee? Tea?" She hopes.

"It's good for you, is what it is." Vanille is digging through a satchel, pulling out flasks. Lightning sniffs at the strange concoction again and takes a sip. The drink is hot and bitter. She pulls a face she can't control.

"It's not drugged, is it?" Lightning inquires, raising one eyebrow for emphasis. She's been drugged by Snow and put out by a sleep spell by Vanille. She really isn't interested in round three right now.

"No." Vanille assures. "Drink it while it's hot. It doesn't taste good cold."

"It doesn't taste good hot."

"So imagine how bad it tastes when it's cold." Vanille replies. She folds her arms across her chest and for a moment, Lightning is reminded of her mother scolding her as a child. The long buried grief startles her in its intensity.

"Just drink it, Sis!" Snow says, totally exasperated.

"Hey! Stop hovering and go help Fang and Sazh. There's been nothing but fighting since I woke up and, frankly, I'm sick of it. I just want to get going without any more drama." Snow stares at her for a moment before he grumbles and complies with her request. She watches him until she's certain he's not going to start a fight with Fang, then focuses on the strange, churning beverage in her cup. She sneers at it. Its very existence in her cup and life offends her right now.

Hope sits beside her. She sips at the cooling bitter brew in her cup, wincing with each sip as Hope stares at the side of her head. She can feel the intensity of his gaze as surely as she feels the sunlight and breeze on her skin. She turns and tilts her head at him, sees the red rimming his eyes. "I'm fine."

"No you're not. Stop saying that." Hope's voice is calm and even, belying the obvious worry beneath. She hates that he's upset. It's no good for him, and she's responsible yet again.

"Alright, not fine," she concedes. "None of us are fine apparently. But I am okay." And she realizes that she's telling the truth. Her blinding headache is receding into a dull ache, the dizziness and nausea have faded into a bad memory. Lightning looks at the foul cup of sludge in her hands with wonder. It's good for you is what Vanille had said, and she had obviously told the truth. Lightning braces herself and chugs the rest

"I thought that tasted bad." Hope says. She can hear the wince in his voice.

"Blech," she says after she swallows. Then she swallows again and again to try to abolish the taste. "It doesn't taste bad. It tastes terrible." Her tongue is plotting her death right now for inflicting such torment upon it. She grimaces and looks at Hope, who bursts out laughing at her. "You think that's funny, huh?"

"You should see your face!" He laugh-snorts.

"Really? Thanks, Hope." She says, faking offense. "You must be taking charm lessons from Snow." The boy melts into another fit of giggles at her comment and she can't help but smile back at him.

"All finished?" Vanille plucks the mug from Lightning's hand and inspects it. "Good! Now eat this." She hands Lightning a piece of smoked meat. "You need the protein."

"I thought we were all eating breakfast."

"We are. I'm making eggs. You'll eat those too. You need extra protein right now since you're healing. No arguments!" Vanille orders, warning implicit in her tone. Lightning and Hope watch her as she strolls away.

"When did Vanille get so bossy?" The girl hadn't said more than ten words to Lightning before last night. She'd figured it was because Vanille was intimidated by her. Now she's ordering her around. _I must be losing my touch._

Hope just looks at Lightning and says, "I guess she's taking lessons from you," and bursts out into another fit of giggles.

"Hey!" Lightning squawks, which just makes Hope laugh all the harder. She finds that she can't be annoyed by anything that makes Hope laugh.

* * *

Two hours later and breakfast is finished, the camp is broken down and the six companions sit in a circle, discussing their plan of action. Two hours of conversation have gotten them absolutely nowhere. If anything, they're all more confused.

"I don't see the point in going anywhere unless we have some sort of goal. I mean, if we are changing into Cie'th, what's the point? Is it better to be Cie'th in the North? What difference does it make?" Sazh says.

"We should press on. Just because we haven't found anyone doesn't mean that there isn't anyone left. Gran Pulse is a big place, if you haven't noticed." Fang replies.

"Yeah. I've noticed. It's a big EMPTY place. There's nothing here but ruins. If it weren't for the ruins and you two" Sazh gestures to Fang and Vanille, "I wouldn't believe humans ever lived here. Not with all the monsters running around everywhere!"

"Cocoon is so much better, right?" Fang snipes. She's still wound way too tight.

"Alright," Lightning intervenes. "This isn't a Cocoon versus Gran Pulse debate, okay? Let's stay on topic."

"Speaking of Cocoon, I think we should find a way back there. There's nothing here. And if there is, odds are we're not going to find it before we turn into Cie'th. We have a better chance taking the fight back to Cocoon." Snow says, shaking his fist in the air for emphasis.

"Can we really go back there? I mean, we're being hunted there by everyone: the Sanctum, the fal'Cie. Even regular citizens. We left to find answers. If we go back without them, what chance do we have?" Hope asks. His voice barely shakes, but Lightning can see and hear the fear as clearly as if he'd screamed.

Lightning remains silent listening to her companions suggestions. Vanille looks like she has something to say, but she holds her tongue. If she doesn't want to speak, Lightning isn't going to press her. This is an open forum and if Vanille feels she has something to contribute, Lightning is pretty sure she will.

When she is pretty sure that each member of the group has decided on their preference, Lightning speaks up.

"Okay. I understand what Sazh is saying. We can't just keep wandering aimlessly. Gran Pulse is too big and we'll probably run out of time before we find anything that way." Objections ring out and she says, "Wait a minute! I'm not finished."

"I think that we all agree that we are going to have to go back to Cocoon eventually." Snow looks smug. She hates to disappoint him, but... "But at this point, I have no idea how we're going to get there. I mean, I'm still not clear exactly how we got out of Cocoon. And we lost our ship getting here. Basically, we're stranded. Does anybody have any ideas about getting back?" They're all silent. Snow's smug look dissolves into aggravation. She feels like she's betrayed him somehow by not taking his side. She shoves the feeling aside. This forum is no place for taking sides or for hurt feelings. They need to make rational decisions here. Snow is a lot of things, but rational isn't one of them. He's an idealist. Idealism and rationality are sort of mutually exclusive. So he'll have to accept her position. Or not. She can't worry about it.

"Okay. So let's table the idea about returning to Cocoon for now. Can we agree on that? Snow?"

"Whatever you say, Lightning," he huffs and turns away. _Ouch. And burr! _She sighs. She hates being at odds with him now. After weeks of moving forward, him being pissed at her feels like another step back. Still, he'll have to get over it. She's talking sense and he's talking ego.

"Okay, so that basically leaves us with which direction to head in on Gran Pulse. Sazh is right. We need a destination. A goal. So where are we going?" She directs the question to Fang and Vanille. "We've walked around this place for weeks and haven't found anything. This is your home. Where do you think we should go?"

"Well, we could go..."

"Vanille." Fang interrupts. "Are you sure?"

"Uh huh."

"You're talking about Oerba aren't you?" Hope says. "Going to Oerba?" Vanille nods.

"What do you mean is she sure?" Snow snaps. He's as anxious for a fight as Fang, Lightning realizes. Things are about to go way south. "You mean you've been holding out on us for a month? What the hell is that about?"

"Hey, Hero. Stow it! Oerba is our home, alright? It's kind of counter-intuitive for us to bring the enemy to our home."

_Uh oh._

"The enemy?" Snow stands up, face beet red. Fang hops to her feet as well, and everyone follows. The tension in the air translates into everyone's posture. The tiny hairs on the back of Lightning's neck stand on edge in response to the charged threat around them. Sazh steps in front of Vanille, grabs Hope's arm and pulls him behind him. His hand hovers over his weapon, uncomfortable and at the ready. Lightning actively diverts her hand from her weapon. Pulling weapons in this situation is only going to escalate things and she wants to diffuse this situation. "Is that what we are? Because here I've been thinking we were allies. Friends even. I should have known better. After all, Pulse caused this whole mess to start with."

Alarm bells chime in Lightning's head. She steps forward.

"Watch it, Hero!" Fang's eyes narrow as she steps forward.

"Or what?" Snow steps up.

"Give me a reason." Eyeball to eyeball. Snow won't hit Fang first, but there's no telling what will happen afterwards. Lightning's heart speeds up, her vision narrows as the adrenaline fires through her at record rates. Blood swells her muscles as every part of her body and mind prepares for a fight.

"That's IT!" Lightning muscles her way between the two, fury pulling a red veil over the world. "Enough! One of you makes a move and I'll drop you both." She holds her empty hands up in a warding gesture. She doesn't touch either of them. "We have enough problems without going for each other's throats. I'm sick of the Cocoon versus Pulse crap. I don't know how it's possible that you two haven't gotten your heads out of your asses long enough to realize that we're all in the same boat. The fal'Cie lied to everyone."

She turns to Snow. "Pulse was never the threat. It was the fal'Cie." To Fang she says, "The fal'Cie lied to all of us. They used fear and ignorance to control us. You both know this and yet, you," she points at Fang, "continue to treat us like the enemy," and you, she says to Snow, "continue to pretend that Cocoon is some wonderful paradise. I'm sick of it. And so is everyone else. So this ends now. Either one of you starts anything and I promise you, I'll end it. Do you understand?" She waits them out, adrenaline charging through her body, lighting up every nerve ending, tensing up every muscle. She's so keyed up she almost hopes one of them does something just to give her an outlet for six weeks worth of pent up rage.

A long minute passes with no movement. The tension unwinds and the threat passes. Lightning is almost disappointed as she walks away. She hears Fang mumble "She's not as tough as she thinks she is," almost turns around to demonstrate to Fang the error of her ways. Rationality reins her in, and she picks up her pace.

"Oh yes she is," Sazh says. "You better believe that! And it won't just be her, either." Lightning keeps walking until she's out of earshot. Her head is splitting again, but the headache is different. This one is aggravation and adrenaline crash with a healthy dash of fear. She'd almost lost control there. Once, she might have attributed the near loss as a consequence of too little sleep and too much stress. Now she can't help but wonder if her ever shortening temper is a sign of impending transformation.

She paces, fidgets, and shakes for a while, waiting for the side-effects of her impromptu adrenaline dump to pass. Everyone wisely keeps their distance from her. Perhaps they've all retreated to their own corners to work out their anger. Perhaps they've all killed each other. Right now, she really doesn't care. She continues pacing until her heart rate and breathing slow and calm. She hears soft footsteps, knows without looking who's standing behind her. She turns.

"You still pissed, Sis?" Snow looks contrite.

"No." She means it. "Not at you anyway."

"It's not Fang's fault. We've just been locking horns all morning. Too much time in one place has us both anxious. I feel like my skin is crawling from all this sitting still." So like him to let go of things. No grudges. She wishes she had half his capacity for forgiveness.

"I'm not pissed at her either."

"That's good. Wait. What?" Totally confused. "What does that mean?" He steps in front of her. "Are you alright?"

"Yes." She reconsiders. "No. I don't know anymore." He looks as confused as she feels. "I almost wanted to throw down just then. Just so I could hit somebody. Really hard."

He laughs at her and she's annoyed. "Yeah, me too. Fang too. And Sazh and everyone. It was a bad situation. We're all tense and we need an outlet. Apparently, sitting idle doesn't agree with any of us. That's why we're heading out of here toward Oerba. Moving will make us feel better, and I guarantee you we'll find something to fight out there. " He smashes his fist into the opposite open palm, obviously eagerly anticipating hitting something.

"I don't want to fight. I don't want to kill anything anymore." Her voice cracks and she curses herself. She needs to get a grip.

"Sis. I thought you were going to let that go."

"I can't let that go, Snow. You don't know what it was like." Squishing, slurping. "What it felt like." Coated and sticky with blood. A black hole where the memory should be. Bits and pieces of something all over her. She'd never enjoyed killing, but she'd done it without much remorse when she'd had to. But killing for survival, either in battle or for food, is not murder. No, she'd never enjoyed it, but she'd never considered herself a monster for it either.

However.

That black hole in her memory holds an impression of ...glee maybe. She can't remember it, yet somehow she knows that nothing could inflict such utter ruin upon anything (let alone another living creature) without a measure of enjoyment. Of fun. She can't remember it, but she feels it all the same. Bone deep ecstasy at the vortex of the black hole in her mind. And it terrifies her.

"Alright, Sis." He's using his spooked animal tone of voice. She realizes that she's worrying him and does her best to pull herself from her funk. She returns to the matter at hand.

"So, did you and Fang kiss and make up?"

"Um, no!" He says, face twisting up. "No kissing. But we did make up. Kind of."

"Meaning that you let it go, she called you a moron and gut punched you, and all is well with the world."

He laughs and she finds her own tension sloughing away. "Something like that."

"You know, Snow. I'm starting to think Fang's sweet on you."

"Knock it off, Sis. She's more interested in a King Behemoth. I just think that she and I understand each other is all."

"Really?"

"Yup. We both look out for our own. Sometimes that puts us on the same side. Sometimes, not so much." He puts his arm around her shoulder. "So, we're going to make for Oerba. Sound like a plan?"

She takes one last glance around. This has been their home for weeks. Within the cradle of this pseudo grotto, they have become a family. She sighs once, exhaling all sentiment and attachment. It's just a place. "Yeah. Let's get the hell out of here."

* * *

"Alright folks. Our path is North from here. We're going through this canyon which should be a fairly safe path. Once we reach the other side, we're at the Archylte Steppe," Fang declares, as if that means anything to any of them. "For those of you new to these parts," she looks pointedly at Lightning, "that means danger. There's lots of nasties and beasties on the Steppe. Most of them can kill a person with one hit. So don't get hit, right?"

"Should we split up or stay together?" Snow asks. "I can scout ahead." Lightning's gut clenches up but she holds her tongue. Snow is a skilled and strong fighter, more than capable of taking care of himself.

"Nope." Fang answers, and Lightning feels her insides untwist. "If anyone's scouting, it'll be me, Hero. But this Steppe is tricky and at this point, a scout is just bait. I think we're best off staying together. At least for now. Alright?" Fang directs the question to Lightning.

"Alright. That sounds like a plan. I'll follow your lead." Lightning assures.

They move out without formation, obviously rusty from weeks sitting idle. They've never gone into the canyon before, though they've camped just south of it for weeks. They have concentrated most of their exploration south of the hills at Fang's direction, and they'd done their best to fortify the mouth of the canyon against intrusion for safety's sake.

Moving on feels good and bad at once. It's good to have a purpose again; to have a destination. But Lightning knows that danger is on the horizon now. She hopes that she can handle what's up ahead, but she's not sure anymore. She hasn't been this thrown off her game since before her parents died, and she can't trust her own body not to betray her. She's always been solid in her skills and her instincts. When everything else in the world collapsed around her, they have kept her steady and moving. Her injury and her progressing deterioration have left her unsure if she'll be able to handle the increasing dangers that Gran Pulse offers. She worries that she'll fail to react correctly and let someone get hurt. She worries that she'll change and kill someone herself.

When the canyon opens into a plateau, Lightning forgets her worries and gasps. The Archylte Steppe is lush and stunning, sparkling like a multicolored gem in the sunlight. She has been in Gran Pulse for better than one month, yet the beauty of the world continues to astound her. Wispy clouds speckle the bright blue of the sky. There are a million shades of green as far as she can see. Every color in creation, and some she's never seen before, blend before her to create a vision unlike anything she's seen before. Two animals dart around in the distance in a sleek, graceful, dangerous dance-a familiar style of freshly fed predators. The ground shakes, startling everyone as one of the hills on the horizon begins moving. Not a hill. An animal.

_Oh my... _

"Welcome to the Archylte Steppe," Fang says. "And that, ladies and gents," she gestures to the giant, slow moving beast in the distance, "is something to avoid. In case you were wondering." Lightning smirks at the sarcasm; smiles at the view. A deep breath brings a whiff of moist earth, flowers, and grass. Lightning closes her eyes and tilts her face towards the sun. Snow comes to a halt beside her, gives a low whistle.

"It's pretty impressive, huh Sis?" Lightning doesn't move except to smile wider.

"It sure is," she says as she falls just a little more in love with this world.

"Hey. What's that?" Snow asks walking forward. Lightning opens her eyes, watches Snow walk toward a strange object. It's a stone statue, made of a completely different type of rock than the surrounding hills and mountains. There is something haunted about this lone statue, standing in the middle of nowhere. Who sculpted it? What does it mean?

"It's a Cie'th Stone," Vanille answers. "This is what happens to Cie'th that don't complete their focus." Her voice trembles, touching off an answering fear in Lightning. _Cie'th Stone?_

Lightning's stomach flutters as her brand sets to a slow burn. She covers the brand with her left hand and with her right hand, touches the stone.

/Must defeat it...must go on. Can't...Hurts to move...to breathe...So close. Sorry. So sorry, my love. I can't do it. I promised. I miss you, love you. I will stop this. Will protect you even if I can never see you again...Hurts...so much. Such a failure. Don't forget me./

She tears her hand away from the stone, digs her fingernails into her brand. Peace and joy morph into desolation. The stone is neither living nor dead. It is a monument of misery, feelings and loss frozen in time. Restlessness embodied for eternity. Lightning channels the pain, tries to untangle the desolation of the stone from her own raw emotions and finds that it is impossible. She is stained forever.

"Sis?"

"Don't touch it." Tears leak from the corners of her eyes. Her heart pounds and breaks. She teeters on the edge of an abyss, holding on to the edge of sanity by her fingertips and slipping. "Don't touch it." She repeats. She feels a hand on her shoulder, one on her face.

"Sis? What is it?" A thumb vanquishes the tear before it can give her away.

"Don't touch." She's not sure if she means her or the stone anymore. This is their fate. They will become mindless monsters filled with rage and regret, destined to be forever entombed with an everlasting memory of failure, impotent to end their own suffering. She shudders.

"Cie'th that don't complete their focus turn to stone with no chance to find peace. They forever dream about their focus and their failure, and will until the world ends, and everything turns to dust." Vanille explains. "L'Cie and other Cie'th can hear their pleas to end their torment. To grant them peace. To complete their focus and set them free."

"That's what this is? This is a Cie'th? Is it conscious? Is it in pain?" Hope asks. His hand slips off Lightning's shoulder, down her arm slowly until it his fingers twine around hers. She can feel his pulse quicken beneath her fingers.

"Yes." Lightning answers. "And no." She opens her eyes, sees the confusion in Snow's blue eyes. He looks at the stone, and then back at Lightning.

"Well, we have to help it then," Snow declares. "We can't just leave it like this. Right? There has to be a reason that we found this thing here." _Just like Snow. He'll help anyone or anything without question. Even a Cie'th. _She thinks of Serah again and her unending faith in this man. Faith that Lightning had mocked and doubted. S_o sorry, Serah. I wish you knew that._

"We don't have time..."

"Snow's right." Vanille cuts Fang off. "We have to help it. Help them all if we can." Fang doesn't argue with Vanille, despite the fact that it's obvious she doesn't agree.

"I'm with the hero too," Sazh concludes. "I mean, it would be cruel to leave this thing here if we can help it. Personally, I don't want to waste time and become a monster. But if we leave this poor cursed thing without trying to help it-doesn't that make us monsters already?" Sazh's argument seems to hit home with everyone-even Fang. They all nod in agreement.

Snow claps Sazh on the back and reaches out to touch the stone. Lightning grabs his hand, snatches it away. "Don't touch it," she says. No way is she going to let any of them suffer that pain.

"Sis..."

"Trust me, you don't want to do that. I've already touched it." _I'm already tainted. _"I'll find out what we need to do."

"But..."

"No arguments," she interrupts and lays her hands back on the stone. The pain and regret wash over her like a tsunami, erodes her already faltering mental coherence. She stops resisting, lets in the pain in order wade through it. Beyond the agony there are no words, just flashes of images firing too quickly for her to process; feelings overlaying each image like a soundtrack. Faces, places, love, hate, anger. It all brightens, fades and coalesces into a monster by a lake

/teeth and claws and insidious intent/

a focal point, a fishing hook latched into her brain, her brand. She releases the statue, holds the throbbing brand on her chest. She knows that she has now accepted this creature's focus as her own.

"Sis?"

"Light? Are you okay?" Hope sounds worried.

_No. _"Yep." She looks up does a slow turn, allowing the strange feeling in her brand to treat her body as a compass needle. Only instead of finding North, she'll now find this Cie'th Stone's focus. She faces Northeast, the throb steadies and burns and she knows she's found her destination. "That way." She points.

"Alright then." Fang seems satisfied that at least they are not leaving her chosen path. "Everyone, we need to move light and quick through the Steppe now. Stay together, move fast, stay low and keep a weather eye. Got it?" Fang steps out onto the plain. Lightning moves toward the head of the group with Fang drawing Hope close to her. While she trusts everyone's skills and vigilance, even Hope's, she's still most comfortable knowing he's in arm's reach. She still has a promise to keep. Sazh hangs back and strikes up a conversation with Vanille, obviously trying to keep her from wandering off.

Vanille is sweet, but a bit flighty at times. Not to mention that she's even more enamored of Gran Pulse than Lightning. When left to her own devices, the girl has a tendency to wander and linger. So she's happy that Sazh has his eye on her now that they are out in the open again. Snow takes up his usual rearguard position, one eye on the back and one on the group. Tension runs high now that they are exposed and in the open and Fang has done an excellent job stoking everyone's paranoia. More than six weeks being hunted and nearly five on Gran Pulse has taught them all the sense of caution, and the reality of dangers in the wild. They are all on hyper-vigilant.

Fang sets their pace and they follow it. They dodge a few groups of predators, all teeth and claws and rippling muscles. Fang keeps them upwind and moving swiftly. They walk a few hours, holding to a northeast direction. Fang shushes them as they come upon a creek, ducks them all into cover as some huge beast wings above them. Fang holds one finger to her lips and they all stay silent. Once the shadow passes, Fang says, "Amphisbaena. That is winged death, ladies and gents. You see one of those you hide. If it catches us in the open, we're screwed." Hope swallows audibly and squeezes Lightning's arm tight enough to cause bruises.

They start walking again, formation tenser and tighter than before. Fang keeps her eyes forward, focused on the horizon. But Lightning can see she's strung as tight as an overdrawn bow. Fang doesn't usually take responsibility for the group's safety, preferring to defer to Lightning's leadership. The responsibility weighs on her. Lightning knows the feeling, but is confident that Fang won't buckle. If she hadn't believed Fang capable, she'd have never ceded control to her.

Fang keeps tight to the hills, using shadows as cover. Lightning keeps an eye on the eastern flank, sense of danger only increasing with each step. She feels a light buzzing behind her eyes; tension knots up the muscles in her neck like a warning. Something has honed in on them. She knows the feeling of being watched. Being stalked. Fang's posture shifts, her head swings. She feels it too. Lightning scans the landscape and slows down her pace enough to let Snow catch up to her.

"What's up, Sis?" Snow says. "See something?"

"No." She studies the horizon, looking for signs of their stalker. "But I feel it."

Snow looks around a bit then nods. "Gotcha. What's the plan?"

"Just keep an eye out. And keep up with the group. If a predator is stalking us, it's going to look for strays and stragglers." She considers for a moment. "And keep an eye on Hope and Vanille, alright?"

"Will do." She walks back toward the front of the group, makes eye contact with Sazh. He nods at her and she knows he's on his guard. She sidles alongside Hope, happier now that the boy is back in arm's reach.

"So how far is Oerba?" Hope asks. The shattering of the silence startles Lightning and breaks her focus.

"Far." Fang says. "It's at least a two day journey across the Steppe. That's without getting sidetracked," she gives Lightning a pointed look. "Since we've decided we're all around do-gooders, I'm going with two and a half to three days."

"And Oerba is on the other side?" Fang laughs out loud at that.

"Not quite. Let's take one step at a time. We'll deal with what's on the other side of the Steppe when we get there." Fang says, doing a quick check around. "If we get there."

* * *

Nightfall on the Steppe is nothing like the previous six weeks. The darkness is an absolute oppression. The curtain of night is accompanied by a rolling fog, reducing visibility even further. They keep the cliff face to their backs in an effort to reduce exposure. The temperature spikes downward as soon as the sun sinks behind the mountains, and by the time full dark approaches, Lightning sees her breath fogging with each exhale. They've never needed a fire as badly as they do now, yet they cannot have one. Fires will only draw attention and predators. So they eat the smoked meats Vanille has cured and huddle for warmth. They set up the watch and settle in for a few hours rest. Lightning and Fang take watch together while the four sleeping members of the group all huddle together in an effort to conserve body heat.

Time ticks by slowly and Lightning lets her mind wander. The predator from earlier remains hidden, though Lightning knows it's still out there. Its patience disturbs her; gives her the impression of intelligence rather than pure instinct. Her feeling may be irrational, but she can't shake it. She knows that she'll find no rest tonight.

Fang stands alone on the north edge of the camp while she faces south. The dark and fog combine to obscure the entire landscape and Lightning decides she might as well close her eyes for all the good they are doing her now. If their silent stalker attacks now, she won't see it before it's on her. She wanders toward Fang, stands beside her and says, "So are the wild animals the reason you avoided the path to Oerba?"

Fang continues to peer into the darkness. "Hell, yeah. I've been out on the Steppe a handful of times. The animals out here are some of the deadliest on Gran Pulse. I've watched two companions bleed out on the Steppe, and saw one disemboweled. That one I killed just to stop the screaming. I had to leave him there to be food for scavengers in order not to end up dead myself. So yeah, I wanted to avoid this trek at all costs."

"I'm sorry." Lightning says.

"Don't be. It was a long time ago and besides, you were right. The past I was protecting is long gone, if it ever existed to start with. Oerba's a long shot but it may be the only shot we have."

"Even still. I'm sorry." She feels the keen edge of Fang's loss. Everything she's ever known has been challenged and destroyed. Where she sees glorious ruins, Fang sees the death of her world. She's hidden her grief so well that it's easy to forget she feels it. And now Lightning knows she's going to cause even more grief. "There's something I need to ask you."

"What's that?"

"It's a favor." Lightning dodges. She's not sure how this request will be received. Still, she knows it's a necessary assurance.

"Uh huh." Fang looks cautious. "And what might that be?"

How to do this? Beating around the bush has never been her style. "You see what's happening to me, right?"

"I don't know what you're..."

"Really? That's how you want to deal with this? You want to play games and deny?"

Fang sighs. "Alright. So I see what's happening. What about it?"

"I need to know, if...if I change, or turn or whatever, that you'll take care of it."

"Take care of it?" Fang asks. It takes two heartbeats before understanding clicks. Confusion melts into anger. "You mean like kill you. That is what you're saying, right? Just so there's no misunderstandings here," Fang says, tone dripping with sarcasm.

Lightning remains calm in the face of Fang's outrage. She recognizes anger and sarcasm as a defense mechanism. After all, she employs it herself regularly. "I mean like kill me. If necessary."

"And how, exactly, am I supposed to know if it's necessary?"

"Fang," she starts.

"No, really. I mean...if you have one too many nosebleeds, should I chop your head off?"

Lightning waits a moment, gives Fang a chance to vent out some of the anger. "I mean if I become a danger. An obvious danger. I don't want to be a monster, Fang. I don't want to hurt or kill my friends. My family."

"And I do?" She says through clenched teeth. "What have I done to win this dubious honor, may I ask?"

"The truth? You're the only who'll do it."

"Thanks a lot. Really. So when you think of me, you think, 'gee, that's the one who can kill her friends.'"

Lightning lets the statement sit for a moment, trying to decide on the best answer. "I don't think it'll be easy. But I think you'll put the good of the group ahead of your own personal comfort."

Fang clams up, stares off into the darkness. She keeps quiet, letting Fang think about her request. She wonders how she would react to the same request. Would she be able to kill one of her friends for the good of the group? In the same position, given no alternative, would she do it?

The answer sickens her when it comes. _Yes, I would._

"Look. Snow won't do it. You know that. He'll let me kill him before he kills me. I won't ask Hope or Vanille. I can ask Sazh, I suppose. But I just don't know if he has the stomach for it."

"And I do?"

"Yes." Lightning declares. Fang has the strength to do this terrible thing. Lightning knows it as surely as she knows she would do it herself. "You do."

"Yeah, I do." Fang almost sounds self-deprecating. Lightning understands. "Alright friend. If there's nothing else to be done, no alternative to be had, I promise I won't let you wander around as a monster. Fair enough?"

"Fair enough." Lightning says and gets up to resume her post.

"Hold up a minute. I have a favor to ask you now."

"And that is?"

"You make damn sure that it doesn't come to that, alright? I don't fancy killing my friends."

"I will do my best." Lightning promises.

"Yeah. You do that," Fang mumbles.

* * *

TBC...  
Action ahead. I wasn't going to cut it there but it just ended on its own so naturally. Besides, I'm not a fan of cliff hangers for their own sake. Sometimes they fit, and sometimes not.

I'm already working on the next chapter and I hope to get back into regular updates. Wish me luck!


	11. Gestalt

Disclaimer: Not mine. If it were, I wouldn't be calling my customers and begging them to pay me for outstanding invoices from six months ago.

I promised action.  
To all my reviewers: Thank you for the feedback. It's good for the soul. Enjoy!

* * *

**ge·stalt **(g -shtält , -shtôlt , -stält , -stôlt )  
**1. **a configuration, pattern, or organized field having specific properties that cannot be derived from the summation of its component parts; a unified whole.  
**2.** an instance or example of such a unified whole.  
Summation: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

-Gestalt-

The attack comes just shy of sunrise. Lightning had been too restless to sleep even after her watch ended. She'd stayed awake through the other two watches, falling into light dozes for a few minutes before snapping awake again. She'd been too anxious, feeling the watchful eye of the predator on the group all night.

When the black of night gives way to purples and blues heralding the dawn, Lightning almost believes they have gotten lucky. But with the soft pink glow of sunrise cresting over the hillsides like a halo comes a blitz of snarling and salivating violence. The beast is upon them before they can even regain their feet.

Lightning leaps up, pulls her weapon as the animal pounces at her. She leaps backwards, her reflexes and instincts saving her from getting a sneak peek at her innards. The creature is all teeth and claws, sleek muscular body as tall as Snow and twice as long again. This is an animal built to kill, a perfect predator blessed with speed, stealth and the patience to stalk.

The animal moves in on her, slow and considering, searching for a way to make a clean kill. The whole camp is in chaos, but she tunes it out. She keeps her eyes on the beast before her, trains the whole of her consciousness on the attacking animal.

Time slows. She steps back and it paws forward. Lips curl away from a mouthful of spikes, front teeth spears overhanging the bottom jaw. She steps back again and it lunges, jaws snapping, and forepaw swatting without connecting. She reacts, whips her blade in an upward arc to fend off the claws. It withdraws its paw and pauses. Waiting. Something is off. This animal could have had her already. It outweighs her. It could run her down before she takes a step, have her throat before she could scream. Instead, it's toying with her.

Distracting her.

The answer fits, touches off warning bells in her head. She holds her weapon in a warding gesture, refuses to rise to the creature's bait and attack. She takes another retreating step, and the animal lets out a bellow. Hot breath mixed with saliva spray over her; the breath reeks of rotting meat and death, and the combination of sound, smell and feeling almost forces a wince. She fights the instinct to close her eyes, knows as soon as she does she's dead.

Another retreating step and the animal paws the ground, shakes its head and snorts at her. She's trying to get her back to the cliff wall, get herself into a defensible position. The animal lunges to her right, rakes its claws low in an attempt to take her feet out from under her. She leaps, swings the blade downward, and whirls it up again catching the left paw in the pad before it can connect with her throat.

The animal leaps back, screams again. There are answering calls all around. The ambush she'd been expecting is upon them. She refuses to take her eyes off the animal before her for the second it will take to check her periphery.

Her vision tunnels out as the world drops away from her. Her brand tingles, her heart races. Hearing vanishes into the adrenaline abyss. A deep, slow breath fills her, and the exhale carries away fear and doubt. Rumbling fills her mind, her throat. She bends her knees, adjusts her stance and lunges.

The animal retreats a step from her, suddenly unsure how to proceed. She has confused it by attacking. She narrows her eyes, lifts her weapon and twirls her body like a tornado. Her blade catches somewhere and the animal retreats further, yelping. She scents blood on the air, knows she's delivered a blow. The knowledge innervates her, drives her forward in her attack. She refuses to allow escape. Now that she has an advantage she gives chase, takes two steps, feels the danger a moment before the second creature lunges for her; avoids collision and death by a hair's breadth.

She drops and rolls beneath the leaping animal, brings her blade up two handed across the underbelly, spilling intestines out onto the ground beside her, pouring blood like rain down across her arms and body. The animal shrieks and lands in a heap, blood erupting in time with its heartbeat. Lightning doesn't pause to even cast a glance to the dying, gutted animal. She rolls back to her feet and leaps, somersaulting above the alpha male and landing behind it, putting it between her and the cliff face. The animal spins around and snaps at her, more dangerous for the fact that it's cornered.

Lightning paces outward from it in a circle, weapon clenched tightly in her hands. The animal roars at her, and she feels the answering scream tear from her. Fire bursts from her hands and blade uncalled, igniting the area around her in a white hot inferno. The scents of smoke and singed hair linger in the air in the wake of the blaze. The animal shrinks away, obviously cowed by the display of magic; the display of fury and undiluted aggression. Lightning steps forward, threatening, and the animal jumps, turns and runs, tail tucked between its hind legs. A quick loud sound from it draws the remainder of the pack and Lightning watches six animals dart off as the sun crests the horizon.

She stands poised until the last trace of the pack disappears into the hills. She watches them, closes her eyes and sniffs the air; can still smell them despite the distance. Time ticks by as her muscles unwind, unclench. She flicks her wrist, flinging blood off the end of her blade before holstering her weapon. Something drips into her eyes, burning them and she lifts a hand to wipe them. Both hands are coated red. She looks at them in horror as time reasserts itself. The world returns to her in a mess of yelling and howling.

Lightning whips around, slips in the blood beneath her feet. She topples, almost hits the ground before righting herself and finding her balance. The semi-gutted, dying animal is still screaming in pain-yelping and whimpering pathetically. Lightning looks at it, laying there dying slowly not ten feet from her. She blinks once, feels nothing, blinks again and feels ill. She'd had no choice and yet she's horrified. Had she not killed it, it would have killed her. The truth of the knowledge offers her no comfort. She can't undo what has happened but she can ease the creature's passing. She pulls her weapon, switches to gun mode and puts the animal down quick and clean with one well placed shot. She sinks to her knees beside the now silent creature, head hung in utter misery. She pets the animal's neck, feels the corpse cooling beneath her fingers. The animal's pelt feels like velvet as she strokes it. She brushes fingers against the grain and then with it, back and forth, over and over, soothing only herself with her rhythmic petting.

Again. She's living her nightmare all over again. Kneeling on the ground, coated in the blood of a creature she has destroyed.

"Sis?"

Lightning snaps her head up, blood from her hair spattering her arms and legs. Spattering Snow's face. She feels the now familiar trickle of blood over her lips, her teeth. She presses the heel of her hand to her nose, doing her best to stem the flow. Snow approaches her slowly, squats down beside her. He stills the motions of her hand over the dead animal, grasps the other elbow and lifts her up.

"Sis? You alright?" She shakes her head. She still can't speak. She feels the blood drying on her skin. It itches. She wants to scratch it off. "That was unbelievable." He pulls her forward, catches her when her legs start to buckle. He slings an arm around her waist, braces her up against his body and walks out of the battle zone.

"Is everyone else okay?" She asks. Every muscle in her body burns and trembles.

"Um." His hesitation bottoms her stomach out. "Yeah. A few bumps and bruises. I think Vanille got scratched. But they didn't come after us, really." _Didn't..._

"What are you talking about? There were eight of them." She looks around the group. They are all pale and shaken but uninjured.

"Yeah. And they all surrounded you, Soldier." Sazh speaks up, holds out a handkerchief for her. She takes it, holds it over her nose. She's totally confused.

"You don't remember that, Light?" Hope says. He looks torn between hugging her and running from her. She's once again a gore covered mess and he looks awed and horrified in equal measures. She can relate.

"I only saw the big one. The alpha male," her voice quavers. "And the one that attacked me." _The one that I killed._

"Five of them surrounded you, Sis. We were trying to get past the other three without getting shredded."

_Huh? No way! _She glances around at everyone waiting for someone to dispute the claim.

"I don't remember that. I only remember the one." So focused on it. Eyes fixed on the twin lanterns of its eyes. Didn't even see the other before it was bleeding out all over her and the ground. "Two. Only the two."

"Well, I gotta tell you, Sis, I've never seen anything like that before in my life. I thought they were going to rip you apart right in front of us." He holds her tighter to him as if he doesn't quite believe that she's still in one piece. She's not sure she believes it either. "I didn't know what the hell we were going to do. We couldn't get near you."

"Hero's right." Fang tilts her head at Lightning. Assessing damage. Assessing danger? " You know, Gran Pulse is my home. The animals here are always an interesting surprise. But I've never seen them behave that way." Fang says. "You alright, then? Everything still in one piece, if you catch my meaning?"

Lightning thinks about it. "Yeah. I think so." No way of knowing for sure. She's shaken and shaking but still in control of herself. For now. "Why would they do that? Come after me like that?"

Her brand itches. Ignites. She has a memory of the Cie'th stone from yesterday and suddenly it's crystal clear. She knows the truth like Serah's voice; like how to field strip her weapon. The Cie'th stone. That monster by the lake. Her shiny new focus. That alpha male is her new target. And she's let him get away... She stares into the empty distance, wondering how far the pack has wandered. If she should give chase.

_/Yes./_

_No!_

"Sit down, Lightning." Vanille says. "You're still bleeding." It's like Vanille has cut her strings with those words. All Lightning's joints turn to liquid and if Snow hadn't been holding onto her, she'd have face-planted right there.

"Woah," Snow says, and hauls her back to her feet. Her head lolls on her neck, blood pouring onto the ground from her nose. "Sis?" he asks. All she can see is her blood dipped hair hanging around her face, and the toes of her blood coated boots flattening the grass beneath her feet. Her arms are dead, hanging heavy from their sockets and swinging like pendulums. She gets a glance of her blood dipped fingers as they sway. The periphery of her vision grays out, wobbles. Her eyelids are too heavy to hold open any more so she lets them dip, surrenders to the sweet seduction of oblivion.

* * *

_'Kill the demon!', someone yells and the mob swells with menace. She runs for all she's worth through streets and alleys in an effort to evade the projectiles being hurled at her. One catches her in the shoulder, spins her around. The mob behind her has grown. Fear pools low in her belly and she turns back around and runs._

_'Get it! Kill it.' The voices blur with yells, with snarls. She shuts them out, focuses on getting away. The once familiar streets are now a sinister labyrinth. Every corner she turns leads to more angry people, more angry mob. If they hadn't been such a disorganized mess, she'd be convinced they were herding her. As it is, they are limiting her ability to flee, and forcing her to fight._

_Another turn leads her to a dead end. 'We've got it!' She hears. She stares at the stone edifice before her, scrabbles at it in an attempt to get handholds, toeholds. She tears fingernails in an effort to get a grip before abandoning the task as useless. There is no way up from here. She turns and waits._

_Pale faces painted with rage approach. She narrows her eyes at them, feels the burn start in the brand between her shoulder blades, in her fingers as she calls the magic. _

_'Don't,' she says. She thinks she says. She tries to say. She hears a croak, a growl. The mob pauses, fury melting into fear. Someone is yelling from the back of the alley to attack, those in the front are saying 'wait, wait.' _

_Every muscle in her body tenses, tightens, tingles. The tingle gives way to tearing, burning pain shooting through joints that crack and creak. Muscles pull until she thinks they'll strip clean from the bones beneath. She screams, howls. She can't close her mouth around the scream anymore. Her jaw snaps on the next howl; teeth clack and gnash, sharpen and lengthen, gouge into the lips that cover them, spilling blood over her chin._

_The mob in front of her pushes and retreats simultaneously. Screams from everywhere as the oneness and organization melt into chaos. Self preservation asserts itself too late for them. She reaches, grabs the first one near her, feels blood gout and gush beneath teeth, over her tongue. Screams fill the air as the nearest try to escape, the furthest try to attack. Trampling feet pulverize those unfortunate enough to lose their balance. The alley becomes a meat grinder._

_She becomes the blade._

* * *

"Lightning!" Snow shouts and she snaps awake, head whipping up. She's hanging in Snow's grip, but she's staring at the sky now instead of the ground. Her face stings from where he's slapped her awake. He kneels beside her, knee pressed into her hip. The arm beneath her shoulder blades trembles, whether from tension or fear is anyone's guess. "Sis! You with us?"

"I'm here." She shifts and he tightens his grip. "How long was I out?"

"A minute. Maybe two." He points to something out of her line of sight. "Give me that." The flask hovers over her face and she slaps it away, dumps the contents all over herself and Snow. "Hey!"

"No drugs." She grunts. She is not going back to sleep again. She can't bear to face the increasingly brutal nightmares that plague her. This last one was blood soaked and awful. She can still feel the utter ecstasy of the devastation.

"It was water, Soldier." Sazh says from her other side. "No injury, no drugs. We promise."

"Oh." She feels foolish for a moment; finds she's too tired to sustain the feeling. "Water sounds good."

"Here," Hope says from out of eyeshot, and another flask appears in Snow's hand. He holds it up to her.

"You gonna dump this one on me too?"

"Maybe," she says and he smiles. He pulls her to a sitting position as she plucks the flask from his hands and takes a sip. Just water as promised. She takes a deep drink, feels Snow's hand pressed into the small of her back.

"Look, I don't want to be a downer here," Fang says, "but you've gotta get that blood off you and we've gotta get away from this corpse. Something's going to smell the blood. We're gonna have scavengers here in no time, and I think we've had enough fun with the local wildlife today. Yeah?"

Lightning looks down at herself. She's covered in drying blood. "Yeah, you're right." Lightning finishes the water and stands up. All things considered, she feels remarkably well. She's still exhausted but there's nothing to be done about that. Sleep is out of the question for now. If she has her way, sleep is off the menu forever. She grabs her pack. "I'll be back in a few."

"You can't go by yourself." Lightning looks at Hope with a raised eyebrow. The boy flushes scarlet, realizing the implications of his statement. "I mean..."

"It's not safe," Snow adds, crossing his arms over his chest. Lightning feels a fondness for these two despite the absurdity of the situation. Really? Hadn't she just turned into the angel of death a few minutes ago? She's more than capable of taking a bath without supervision! And exactly which one of them thinks they should be supervising her baths anyway? Sazh, she notices, is tacitly ignoring the entire exchange. He's developed a sudden fascination with his boots. _Smart man._

"I'll go with her," Fang speaks up. "You gents can pack everything up and rustle up some food." Fang grabs her own pack and walks over to Lightning. "Vanille?"

"I'm going to make something to eat. " She's eyeing the corpse with an intensity that gives Lightning a chill. Vanille walks over and hands Fang a bag. "Fill these flasks, will you? We're running low."

"Got it. Be back in a few." Fang promises and she and Lightning take off for the lake.

* * *

"I think it's dead," Fang says. Lightning looks at the soaked, stained vest in her hands, then back at Fang. She sighs, puts the vest on the rock and starts scrubbing at the stains again. Fang lays a hand on her shoulder. "There's no hope for it, my friend. It's done for."

Lightning lifts the vest up again, holds it by the shoulders to get a look at it. Fang's right. It is dead. "I really like this vest."

"Nothing to be done about it." Fang plucks the vest from Lightning's hands, throws it on the ground. "We'll give it a proper send off." Fang digs in her pack, comes out with a flask and a match. She takes a deep drink from the flask, pours some on the vest. "Want some? It's good stuff."

Lightning takes the flask and sniffs it. Whatever foul concoction is in there smells atrocious. "Pass, thanks." She hands the flask back to Fang. Sleep deprivation, blood loss and alcohol seems like a pretty bad idea right now.

"Suit yourself." Fang pockets the flask, pulls a match and tosses it on the vest. The garment goes up like a Roman Candle.

Lightning watches the vest burn with regret for a moment. She roots around in her bag, trying to come up with something to wear. She can't just wander around in her underwear, although at the rate she's destroying clothes, that soon may be her only option. "I'm running out of clothes."

"Here," Fang says, and she tosses something underhand. "You can have this. Try not to eviscerate anything for a couple of days. I don't have all that much clothing either, you know."

"Thanks," Lightning says, pulling the shirt on. Shirt, she thinks, is a relative term. Fang has an affinity for being scantily clad, it seems. Still, beggars can't be choosers. She rolls on her left glove, puts on her vambraces and buckles her holster around her thigh. She's managed to save her cape from the fire pit, so she buckles it on. Suited up and armed, she feels slightly less naked. A breeze chills the exposed flesh of her belly and arms.

Very slightly.

"Ready then?" Fang says. She and Fang split the full water canteens and flasks, and load them up like pack animals.

"Yep." She does feel much better now that she's cleaned the blood from her hair and skin, though not as good as she'd feel in hot water. And clothes. She'd kill for a hot bath. Maybe when they reach Oerba...

"So, you really don't remember that fight?" Fang asks. Lightning considers her answer.

"I remember pieces of it." /Bloodlust roaring at her, whispers to ravage./

"I couldn't get the Hero to shut up. He was shouting for you and I thought for sure he was going to distract you and get you killed. Or get himself killed."

The picture Fang paints for her sends a shiver down her spine. "I didn't hear him."

"Well, I can understand somewhat. When you're fighting, you disappear into a zone. It's all survival. Kill or be killed. There's no real rational though left. I know it happens to me."

"You don't have to try and..."

"I'm not trying anything, alright?" Fang interrupts, quick and nervous. "I'm just saying that adrenaline wreaks havoc on our senses and screws with memory. That's all."

Lightning opens her mouth to argue. Closes it again. How bad are things when Fang is comforting her? How bad are things when she's willing to allow Fang to offer comfort? The answer comes unbidden. _Pretty damn bad. _The two spend the remainder of the walk in contemplative silence.

* * *

The camp is not broken down by the time they return and Lightening can't help but be irritated. It has taken nearly two hours to hike to the lake, fill all the empty canteens, buckets and flasks, bathe, comb the dried blood and god know what else out of her hair, clean her clothes, dress and hike back. The least that Snow, Sazh and Hope could have done is pack up their stuff. Instead they all sit looking pale and bit clammy. Lightning puts the water down, shoulder complaining under the strain of the weight.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Sazh says. Lightning raises an eyebrow.

"Nothing." Snow says. Lightning crosses her arms over her chest and looks at Hope for an answer.

"Um. Vanille skinned that animal." Lightning looks across camp and sees Vanille butchering the animal's carcass.

"Oh." Lightning says, putting the water down. "That's a good idea."

"Good idea. Yeah." Snow agrees, still looking slightly green. Lightning puts her water down and takes a good look at the three of them.

"So, I'm guessing you haven't eaten anything." She shouldn't really be surprised by their shock or disgust. After all, on Cocoon the entire food supply is generated by the fal'Cie Carbuncle. Odds are that none of them have really had much survival training. Vanille has been handling preparing most of the food since they've been on Gran Pulse, and the animals that they've eaten have been much smaller. It's one thing to watch someone skin a fish, or hare, or pluck a bird. Watching someone skin an animal three times the size of a man is a whole other story. Instead of fingers, Vanille would have had to use her fist to separate the hide from the meat. And considering her petite stature, it must have been quite a sight.

Lightning goes to see if she can help. In the Guardian Corps training, she had to learn how to survive on her own as part of her training. She's not exactly adept, but she's certainly capable. Fang is mixing something together that smells atrocious. The hide looks cleaned and hydrated already and Lightning can only attribute that to the joys of magic. Vanille is not much of a fighter, but she can sure cast a mean spell. Lightning has no idea what sort of magic Vanille has worked here, but she sure the hell knows that preparing animal hides for tanning and use takes time. Days and days. "Anything I can do?"

Fang looks up and says, "Yeah. You can stay clean and not destroy that shirt. Vanille, love, are we really going to be able to finish this today? I'm not really interested in hanging around on the Steppe for longer than necessary."

"Uh huh." Vanille says, filleting meat into familiar strips for curing. "We'll have to let it set overnight, but it'll be worth it when we're in Mah'Habara. It can get awfully cold in those tunnels and a bit of fur will be awfully welcome."

"Hmm." Fang says, stirring and macerating whatever is in the pot. Considering what they're doing, she's guessing brains for tanning.

Lightning gives up trying to figure out what they're talking about, figures that she should work on preparing the water and setting up a perimeter. They're going to be here until tomorrow.

* * *

"So, one day of travelling and we're standing still again," Snow grumps as he sits himself beside her.

"So it seems." Lightning says. She strings a nylon cloth across the top of the pot and slowly decants the water through it in order to remove any silt or sand. Since it sounds as if they'll be here for the day, she plans to take her time preparing their water. She's tired of taking a sip of water and getting a mouthful of grit. She looks up, sees that the sun is already past its apex. "The days are getting shorter. And Vanille says we'll need the fur, so I guess it's going to get colder pretty fast. One day to prepare ourselves isn't time wasted." She throws another log on the fire to get it higher. "Besides, I feel better using a slaughtered animal than leaving it to rot."

"Hey, Sis, you know that you had no choice in that mess, right? I know that you said you didn't want to kill anything..."

"I didn't." _Liar!_ "I don't. But survival is survival. If I didn't kill this one it would have killed me. Or we would have had to kill some other animal soon enough." Hope comes and sits beside her with a pile of animal bones. She removes the nylon carefully, stirs the pot, looks at him and says, "What are you doing?"

"I don't know. I just. I had this dream. I think I know a way to improve our weapons." _Dream? _Oh god, she hopes that he's not having dreams like hers. The idea of it makes her sick.

"Yeah, give me one of those," Sazh says, sitting beside him. Hope slides a bone toward Sazh. The four of them now sit in a loose circle around the slowly heating water. Sazh hands Snow a full plate of cooked meat. "Try some of that. It's delicious. Vanille sure can cook!" Snow takes a piece and hands the plate to her. She offers some to Hope, watches to make sure he eats before examining the meat for herself. She takes a piece of hot meat between her fingernails, nibbles at it. Sazh is right. It is delicious.

Sazh dumps the contents of his satchel of collected odds and ends, strips one Altair pistol down to parts and begins fiddling around. "What are you doing?" Lightning asks, curious and a bit horrified. She'll take her weapon apart to clean and oil it. But the idea of screwing around with her weapon is disturbing.

"I'm not really sure. But the kid said something that rings a bell with me." Sazh fits strange objects together, uses bizarre oils to grease the parts as he slides them back together. "Remember when I said that I'd lost chunks of memory and then got back memories of stuff I'd never known?" His fingers fly over the pieces of his gun as if he's made this modification thousands of times. "Well, I didn't just know how to mix up some new potions. I also knew how to make equipment modifications."

"Why didn't you say anything before?" Snow asks. His tone is curious without accusation.

"Honestly?" Sazh says as the slide of his pistol snaps forward. "I wasn't sure if I was remembering something or just losing my mind."

"You too, kid?" Snow asks.

Hope shakes his head. "For me it's different. It's not like I know it, but like I've seen it." Hope says. "Can I use that cable?" Sazh hands it over without looking, still intently modifying his pistols. Hope integrates the cable into his Airwing, hooks up something that sets the whole weapon humming. Lightning thinks about her own weapon, wonders if there's anything she can do to improve it before discarding the idea. The idea of profaning her weapon is too disturbing to consider.

"I'm glad I fight hand to hand. That all looks too confusing." Snow says, stealing another piece of meat from the plate in Lightning's lap.

"I could improve your coat. Like armor, if you want. I've got this carapace and leather here. I'm pretty sure I can work it in so you can't see it." Snow looks at his coat, skeptical. "You get hit an awful lot Hero, and you tend to stick to the front lines." Snow hems and haws for a bit before shrugging off his coat and letting Sazh have at it.

"What are you kiddies up to?" Fang says as she takes a seat in the circle. "Oooh. Are you done with that? I'm starving." Fang points to the plate that Lightning still holds. Lightning nods, hands over the plate. Snow plucks a piece of meat from the plate as it passes in front of him and Fang growls at him. He gives her his most dazzling smile. She smirks back at him. To Lightning she says, "Cheers!" She pops a piece of the meat into her mouth and hums her delight.

"So, what are you up to then Sazh?" Fang says around a mouthful of food. "That looks complicated."

Sazh is still fiddling with one pistol, adding strange components that they've accumulated over the past six weeks. Fang watches with fascination. "Hey, that looks pretty neat. Can you teach me that?"

"I'm not sure. It's not something I learned. I just...knew it."

"I think it's important that we talk about that," Lightning says. "About the dreams too," she says to Hope. Hope looks at her with wide eyes. Her gut rolls when she realizes that she's frightened him.

"What's on your mind then?" Fang says.

"Well, these abilities that Sazh has now." Lightning starts. "Does anyone have any idea what they might mean?"

Sazh shrugs. "I don't know. I can't say I'm not concerned about what's happening to me. But if it's useful, what the hell, right? Not like ignoring it is making it stop or go away."

Fang nods. "Right. And becoming l'Cie gave us magic, yeah? So, why should we be surprised if we learn other things. I have no idea how I know how to cast spells now. I just do."

Lightning nods. Fang makes an excellent point. Still, what's the explanation for the dreams.

"Hope, are your dreams...disturbing?"

"Huh?" Hope looks clueless. She is immediately relieved. If his dreams mirrored her own in any way, there is no way he could hide it from her. "What do you mean?"

"What are your dreams like?" She asks. She doesn't want to alarm him. Maybe Hope's dreams are pleasant and peaceful.

"I think the question here Sis, is what are your dreams like?" Snow leans forward, hands clasped between his knees.

Lightning sighs. Snow exasperates her. "Violent," she says honestly.

"Well, all things considered, I think that's pretty understandable, Soldier." Sazh says, slipping components into his wristband. "We've been fighting nonstop for six weeks. Watching people die, killing to stay alive. I've been having my fair share of nightmares."

"Are they normal nightmares?"

Sazh frowns. "What's a normal nightmare?"

_Good question. Truth time._

"My dreams...nightmares feel more like memories than dreams." They all look at her, considering.

"I have nightmares about Serah turning to crystal," Snow admits. "That's a memory and a nightmare."

"Yes, it is." How can she explain this so it will make sense? Of course, that might be easier if it made any sort of sense to her. "But that's your memory." Lightning says, willing them to understand. "I'm having dreams that are like other people's memories." They all just stare at her. "At least, that's how they feel."

"Well, how can that be?" Sazh asks.

"I don't know. And I don't even know if that's what it is. I know it sounds crazy." _I feel crazy._

_I am crazy._

"Well, what do you remember?" Hope asks.

"I don't know. I don't know if that's even what they are. It's just how they feel. And I was wondering if I was the only one." _I hope so. I hope not. God, what is wrong with me? _"It's not important."

Snow looks like he's about to refute her statement when Vanille shrieks. Panic splashes over the group like a bucket of ice water. Fang nearly bowls Lightning over in an effort to reach Vanille. Sazh yells "Vanille!" and cocks both pistols, darts into the fray.

Lightning draws her weapon, terror pumping through her as she runs toward Vanille, Snow and Hope hard on her heels. They arrive to find Fang bent over a bleeding, woozy Vanille; Sazh stands guard, surveying the area for any threats. Lightning stops, waits, scans the area for threats. Nothing moves in the light breeze. "What happened?" She asks.

"Don't know," Fang snaps. She has a cloth pressed against Vanille's head. Hope runs to the prostrate girl, starts fussing over her. Lightning watches him for a moment, worried that he's going to use magic but unable to caution him against it. She looks away, continues monitoring for attack.

"Vanille? What happened?" Fang asks. Sazh is still poised with both guns leveled before him. He stares into the lengthening shadows, willing something to appear. He looks like he wants to kill something right now. Fang whispers, "Did you see?"

"Hmmm." Vanille grunts. She's too out of it to give answers. Lightning spots blood on a rock beside her, figures that the girl banged her head. She nudges Snow, points to the blood. He nods, continues looking for what's hit her and knocked her down.

"Did you fall?" Fang asks. Lightning holsters her weapon, kneels down next to Vanille to check her over. Vanille's pupils are blown wide from an obvious concussion. She's disoriented and in pain. Lightning runs her fingers around the back of her head and finds a bleeding bump where her head must have connected with the rock.

"She's not going to be able to answer you right now." Lightning concentrates, draws all her power to herself and casts a cure spell. The bump shrinks and disappears under her fingers. Vanille's eyes close in relief as the swelling subsides. "Give her a few minutes and give her some water." Fang nods at her, touches the freshly healed spot on the back of Vanille's head.

The gentle breeze picks up, whips Lightning's hair into her eyes. She swats at the offending hairs, squints into the breeze and shivers. She looks up to see if there are storm clouds gathering overhead...

Sees the Amphisbaena swooping down at them, aimed for Hope.

"No!" She gasps and hurls herself at Hope and Fang, knocks them to the ground and pins them beneath her. Claws rake across her back, drawing blood and a curse. The animal forces its weight down on her, closes its talons around her ribs, long claws pricking into her flesh. She bites her lip to stifle the yell, curls over Hope and waits for further onslaught. Gunshots ring out, the animal squawks once and ascends. Lightning rolls off of Hope and leaps to her feet, weapon drawn and firing in one move. Hope starts to get up and Lightning presses him back to the ground with her left hand.

"Stay down!"

"But..."

"Just do it, Hope." She growls, pressing him onto his belly. Fang is on her feet now, bladed lance whirling in her hands.

The animal circles overhead, shadow doing a slow, languorous sweep over the six companions. The animal takes its time assessing them, building its confidence and frazzling their nerves. Lightning stands protectively over Hope and Vanille, refusing to allow this creature access to the two youngest members of the group. She looks at Snow, sees the fury in his eyes, in his red face.

"Snow," she calls. He's too good to take his eyes off the threat.

"Yeah, Light. What's up?"

"Keep Hope and Vanille safe." That gets his attention. He looks over at her, confused. She winks at him and his eyes widen. She's moving before he can open his mouth. She runs for all she's worth, fires her weapon at the hovering threat. Makes a nuisance and moving target of herself.

"Lightning, no!" Snow yells. She ignores him, runs full tilt for the cliff face. The animal's shadow overtakes her before she gets there and she turns, ready for whatever comes. The animal tucks its wings close to its body, preparing to dive-bomb.

"Light!" Hope yells.

"Don't just stand there, you crazy bitch!" Fang yells. Lightning hears Fang charging for her, knows she won't make it.

Odin appears between Lightning and the Amphisbaena. The animal startles, opens its wings in an effort to slow its descent. It shimmies in mid air, squawks in frightened rage. It hadn't been expecting that.

_How about this?_

Lightning leaps up, willing Odin to understand her intentions. It does, the two of them tuned to each other. The Eidolon knows her needs almost before she does. Odin catches her in mid-air and hurls her at the faltering animal. She's like a bullet from a gun, hurtling toward her target. Her blade tears through the creature's wing like tissue paper on her ascent. The animal can no longer stay aloft and spins out, screaming as it falls. Its long tail catches her in the ribs with brutal force, spins her around and ruins her trajectory. She's lost her wind and orientation as a result of the hit. Gravity grabs a hold of her before she'd planned and she plunges head first toward the ground.

"Lightning!" Snow shouts.

She allows herself a second to regret before she closes her eyes and waits for death.

* * *

TBC...

UGH! Cliffhanger time. (Sorry about that.)


	12. Till Human Voices Wake Us

To my reviewers: Thank you for your feedback and encouragement. It keeps me writing.  
This one is long. I was going to post it two days ago, but I pulled it down to do a major revision.

* * *

"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. "  
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

-Till Human Voices Wake Us-

The impact never happens. Lightning opens her eyes and stares at the darkening sky from the cradle of Odin's arms.

_Oh, yeah. Forgot about him._ She spends a long moment feeling incredibly stupid.

The creature is colder than she would have imagined, had she taken the time to imagine such a thing. Odin's presence has always made her uncomfortable, and she has fastidiously avoided unnecessary contact with the creature. But here, in its arms, she finds that she feels comfortable. Complete. Two pieces of a whole. The Eidolon stares at her with something indefinable in its eyes. She wonders if it feels the same before dismissing the idea as fanciful and ridiculous. Eidolon's are not human, nor subject to human emotions. She doubts it can feel anything that she might understand or to which she can relate. She holds the Eidolon's gaze for another moment before closing her eyes in relief.

Odin puts her on her feet and disappears. She stares at the spot where it had stood, feeling a bit bereft at its disappearance, before something collides with her. She stumbles under the impact, grunts at the flare of pain from her injured ribs. Oh yeah, she's going to feel **all of this** in the morning.

"Light!" Hope mumbles against her collarbone. "I thought you were going to die."

_Me too, _she thinks, but keeps the thought to herself. Hope is upset enough right now without her stoking the fire. She closes her arms around the trembling boy and holds him. She strokes his hair and exhales the tension and fear of the past few minutes.

But peace never lasts very long, especially not on Gran Pulse. She looks over Hope's shoulder and catches sight of Snow storming over to her with murder in his eyes. He stops just shy of arm's length, looking for all the world like he might just explode. He's red-faced and shaking, blue vein popping from the middle of his forehead. She expects yelling, shouting, berating. But he stays silent and stews, teeth gnashed together to the breaking point. Snow too angry to speak is a rare sight. Each second that ticks by redoubles his anger until she's afraid he might stroke out right there. She breaks the hug, presses Hope away from her. She won't use the boy as a shield against Snow's outrage. She's many things, but she's no coward.

No use putting off the inevitable. "Go ahead," she cues.

"What the hell were you thinking?" The words erupt from Snow with earsplitting intensity. Hope flinches beside her and everyone else takes an immediate and unnatural interest in the surrounding landscape. Her own hackles rise at the tone, but she reins in her temper, stamps on her irritation and refuses to cave to her instinct to snap back at him. She knows that she's scared him. And since he's still shaking now, she's figures that she may have even terrified him. If their roles had been reversed, she would shout at him too. "Well?"

What **had **she been thinking? _Oh god, oh god, we're all going to die, _comes to mind. Truthful as the answer is, she doesn't say it. While gallows humor is fast becoming a mainstay of her sanity, Snow, she realizes, is not ready for it. He will take it as insult at best, or belittlement at worst. She has all the finesse of a sledgehammer when it comes to feelings, but she is trying to get better. She has no idea how to deflate his anger so she just goes for honesty.

"I thought it was going to kill us."

"So you decided to let it kill you instead?"

"Yes," she fires back. Hope inhales a gasp but keeps quiet. She takes his hand, laces his fingers with hers. "No! It wasn't like I wanted it to kill me, Snow. I had an idea that I thought might save everyone else."

"What about you, Lightning?" He lowers his voice. "You promised me you weren't trying to get yourself killed!"

"And I'm not." She lays her hand on his wrist, over his brand. Hers tingles in response but she ignores it. Now is not the time for l'Cie nonsense. She files the strange phenomenon away for later contemplation. "But I wasn't going to let that thing kill Hope or Vanille. Or you. Or anyone else for that matter. Not when I thought I could stop it." She feels the muscles in his arm relax a bit. He's not happy, but he's not angry anymore either. She envies his ability to let go of his anger and resentment so easily.

"Don't do it again, alright?" Snow says, then surprises her with a hard, brief hug. His hand brushes a fresh injury and she arches her back to avoid contact, pressing into him. He doesn't notice her discomfort, for which she is infinitely grateful. "You scared the crap out of me, Sis," he whispers in her ear, words for her alone.

"Sorry." And she is. She's sorry that she's frightened him. She hadn't been thinking of consequences, or dying. She hadn't really been thinking about anything but getting the monster away from her friends-her family. And she can't and won't promise him that she won't do it again. Fang and Sazh approach now that the dust has settled. Lightning extricates herself from Snow's grip and looks at Fang with a raised eyebrow.

"Crazy bitch, huh?" Lightning smiles wide at Fang, who smirks back at her.

"Absolutely! I have seen some insanity in my day. But that was hands down, the looniest thing I've ever seen."

"Effective though," Sazh chimes in and claps Lightning on her shoulder. "Very effective. Nice work, Soldier." The light tap sets off a chain reaction of pain through Lightning's injured back. Bands of agony tighten around her chest, make her feel as if she's being crushed. Strangled. Smothered. The whole world tilts for a minute, and her stomach clenches around the measly meal from earlier. She swallows down the rising gorge.

"Woah, hey, wait a minute Soldier," Sazh says, hand firmly clasping her elbow. "What'd I do?"

_Good question._

"What'd I do?" Sazh repeats, looking to the others for an answer.

"Nothing," Fang says. She grabs Lightning's chin, looks into her eyes. "She's gone ashen." Fang's face separates into twin images hovering side by side. "Her pupils are blown." Fang's fingers grip her throat, press into the skin above her Carotid artery. "Her heart's racing. Vanille, we need help here!"

"Sis? Are you alright?" She shakes her head and everything spins. Her face burns so hot that for a moment, she's afraid her brain is cooking in her skull. The breeze should be a blessed relief, but instead makes her shiver, makes her teeth chatter.

"Light!" Hope says from the vicinity of her right shoulder. "You're bleeding!" _Wow. If this is another episode it's the worst one yet. _She presses a hand to her nose and it comes away clean. No blood. Confusion slows her down, gums her thinking. There's an explanation here but she'll be damned if she can see it.

"Huh?" She grunts, tastes the vomit burning its way up her throat. She tries to swallow but her mouth is dry. She feels as if there are foreign objects lodged in her throat and lungs. She presses a hand to her sternum, rubs at the growing, burning ache. She tries to breathe through the pain, feels as if she's one lung short. She panics, tries harder to pull in air, hears a whistling crackle and sees pinpoints of black amidst the growing swirl of color.

"She can't breathe!" Hope yells.

"Sis?" Snow yells in her face. She can feel his hand on her chin, sees a vague blue eyed blob right in front of her face. "Your lips are blue! What the hell is going on?"

"Snow, get her over here!" _Vanille!_ Lightning looks around for Vanille, can't distinguish one blob from another. She's disoriented; she blinks, then again. Her eyes won't focus. Things get even worse as the whole world upends, sending the contents of her stomach halfway up her throat. Snow scoops her up before she can protest (not that she's in any shape to protest right now). Vertigo swirls the world around in a blur of dark, light and color. She shuts her eyes against it, then opens them again. The complete inability to find a horizon unsettles her mind nearly as much as it upsets her stomach..

"What's wrong with her?" Hope asks. He sounds like he's crying. Lightning tries to get a glimpse of him but Snow is moving too quickly. Or the world is. She can't tell at this point. She wants to comfort Hope, tell him not to worry about her. Tell him she'll be alright.

"She's been poisoned," Fang answers. "The Amphisbaena has a damn toxin on its claws." Fang sounds pissed off, which means that she's frantic.

_Poisoned huh? _"That's new," Lightning jokes despite the pain radiating through her in waves. Her mouth is numb, and the words slur out.

"Shut up, Lightning," Snow snaps as he lays her on the waiting blanket. The pain at the contact with the ground is excruciating, like ten thousand hot blades stabbing through her at once. She arches, writhes. The world goes sideways for a second and she tries to roll, go fetal. "Sis?" He puts a hand on her shoulder to press her down and she yelps. "Oh god, I'm sorry."

"S'okay," she groans, except it isn't. The poison raging through her seems to be waking up every single hurt she's ever received in her entire life. Her shoulder is on fire; her forearm feels like it's been rubbed raw and splayed open; her head throbs-stabs-throbs in time with her racing heartbeat. She's dying, and she'll kiss death full on the mouth when it takes her if it means an end to the torment.

"She's burning up! What do we do?" Snow yells.

"I have an idea," Hope says. She recognizes the feel of his small hand on her forehead. His fingers are a blessed cool relief against her fevered brow. She presses into the contact until awareness seeps in. Her brand burns and she knows, **knows,**_** knows **_that he is about to cast a healing spell on her.

"No!" She yells, swats at him hard and shakes him loose. She'll not have him hasten his own death over her. She's a veritable dead woman. Her whole body is one giant muscle contraction. Her muscles cramp, knot until they feel like they're peeling, stripping from her skeleton. "No." She repeats, tries to curl around the stabbing pains in her abdomen.

"We have to do something!" Snow yells. She's boiling and shivering, twitching and cramping. She's afraid to open her mouth for fear she'll turn inside out. Snow pries at her fingers one at a time, trying to uncurl the vise of her fist in order to slip his hand into hers. She clenches around his fingers with enough strength to break them-pulverize them. She concentrates on his hand, on not hurting him and sends up a quick prayer for a swift death. She feels the heat of Snow's breath ghost over her ear as he whispers, "Sis, just hold on, alright?"

"Why won't she let me help?" Hope is crying now. Deep, shuddering sobs that twist up Lightning's gut even more. She wants to explain, to take it back. She sinks her teeth into the meat of her tongue to prevent the damning words. She'd rather he hate her than turn into a monster because of her. She'll accept his ire, not his death.

"I'll take care of it, Hope. Alright?" Vanille-ever the peacekeeper. So serene. "You can help Lightning and me by getting water." Vanille is a beacon of calm sanity in the maelstrom. "Alright, Lightning. It'll be okay. We're going to fix this." She feels Vanille's tiny fingers trace the crease in her forehead. Then the cool soothe of Vanille's magic pour into her with the practiced ease of a master. Unlike Hope's spells, or her own clumsy attempts at healing, Vanille's magic is a steady growing wave of peaceful calm, emanating from her fingers, extinguishing fires and numbing pain from Lightning's head to her toes.

Lightning unclenches, uncurls as the pain eases. Her muscles spasm and shudder from dehydration and strain. Her whole body twitches and shivers in the cooling night air. She's soaked with a fetid sweat from the broken fever. Snow's thumb strokes over the back of her lax hand, the other hand cups her jaw to turn her face. She looks at him through the swollen slits of her burning eyes. His brow is furrowed with worry and concentration.

"Lightning? You with us?"

She opens her mouth to say yes when the ground opens beneath her and unconsciousness swallows her whole.

* * *

_She wakes on the cold hard ground, confused, disoriented. There are marbles in her head and cotton in her mouth. She rubs her closed eyes, feels the hard roll and squish of her eyeballs beneath the thin skin; feels the sharp stab of pain zing through her temples and light her whole head up like fireworks. She blinks, looks around her to get her bearings. She has no idea where she is or how she's gotten here. Her last memory is of her bedroom. Getting ready to go to sleep._

_The roar and cheer stun her, make her twitch. She's dull of mind and senses, confused and muddled beyond any rational reason. She's been drugged, or poisoned, but she has no idea how or why. She leans up on one elbow, the skin scratching against the rough turf beneath. The grit and slide of the rough ground tears at the skin of her arm. She sits up, soothes away the new abrasion, looks around at a stadium full of faces. _

_She's been taken to the arena. _

_Fear pounds through her, kicks up her heart rate. A glance around confirms the horror of her supposition. The dirt beneath her is stained a permanent red from the fountains of blood spilled upon it; the blood of thousands spilled for base entertainment. Her friends, her neighbors have done this to her. She had seen their fear, but had never assumed they would resort to such depravity to assuage their ignorant anxiety. They've drugged her, assaulted her, kidnapped her and thrown her into the pit to watch her die. For amusement. _

My family_. What had they done to her family? Her children? Are they here? Are they dead? Well does she know the depth and breadth of hatred for l'Cie. Fear that runs so deep and hatred that runs so dark as to justify infanticide. If she is here to face execution, her family is already gone. The only mercy shown to them a quick death. It is a mercy she will not know. _

_She stares into the smirking, snarling faces of the audience in order to glean the truth. She looks around to gauge the crowd, but their faces reveal only contempt. Something hits her hard dead center in her forehead and she cries out. Laughter and more projectiles answer her pain. She shimmies and shifts to avoid the rocks, fruits and rotten vegetables being hurled at her by the audience. _

_She hop skip jumps to her feet, anger tinting the world a familiar shade of red. She catches a rock to the temple as she stands, and her head explodes, ears ring with pain and shock. Blood runs into her eye, burning and blinding. She wipes and rubs, cradles her aching head for a moment. She doesn't understand why they have made her the spectacle; why she has become the answer to their violent fantasies. Yesterday she had been one of them. Today, they scream for her blood._

_The pain behind her eyes radiates, encompasses her whole head before it creeps down her neck, her shoulders. She is agony, and every strike, every attack makes it worse. What had started as mild discomfort is turning into out and out torture. She shakes her head, hears someone yell the word 'monster' at her. Confusion and despair war for first place in her soul._

_The ground shakes. Again. She turns to see the fiend of nightmares behind her. Set loose upon her. She is the sacrifice and the ground she stands upon, the alter. The monster bays, stomps, bays again. The crowd cheers. She narrows her eyes, seeks anyone's gaze in the crowd. They've set her here to die for their amusement, but they won't meet her eyes. Fear disappears in favor of icy loathing. They call her monster. They call her animal. These HUMANS and their twisted morals and ideals. To assuage their fears and in the name of 'purity,' they would murder her children, would drug her, take her from her home and make fodder of her for the beasts of the world. _

_And then disguise it as Entertainment!_

_A shiver passes through her spine, twitching her body, shaking her against her impulse and will. The strange brand on her thigh burns so hot she's sure the skin is melting and sloughing from her body. She would pray except even the gods have abandoned her to death. What can she do here against this Adamantoise? This master of all monsters on Gran Pulse?_

_The brand on her thigh burns hotter still, sends shivers through the whole of her body in answer. She has no reprieve; her focus, her l'Cie power will not be denied. She screams, shudders. Joints pop and explode-starbursts of torment ignite as muscle and sinew stretches, snaps. She howls; Leviathan appears with a roar and a tsunami. The gods have abandoned her but her Eidolon has not; it never will. The jeers of the crowd turn to screams of anguish; voices mix together, cacophony turns to sonata and she smiles. Smiles as they drown in their seats. As they stampede, crush each other beneath panicked feet in the scramble for escape. She delights in the sound of snapping bones and gasping breaths. Neighbors and friends press each other beneath the surface of the water, drown one another in their frantic attempts at self-preservation. She laughs as parents trample their own children in their vain attempts at survival. She's almost tempted to force them to live with their cowardice, but there's still a modicum of mercy in her soul. The great serpent bows to her will. _

_She wills bloodshed._

* * *

The bloodlust follows her into consciousness. Lightning burns with an irrational anger when she wakes, body pulsing with the need to hurt something. The buzzing in her head is so loud, she's certain that others can hear it. She keeps her eyes closed and breathes, holds her body rigid in an effort to suppress the trembling fury. She clenches her jaw, hears it creak in protest. It's going to hurt like hell later, like someone jawed her but good, but she doesn't care. If she doesn't hurt herself right now, she might just hurt someone else.

She really, really wants to hurt someone.

Voices filter through the haze of rage. She tries to ignore them, finds the inability only amps up her wrath. She squeezes her fists until nails cut and slice into the flesh of her palms. She gives up ignoring and decides to listen, hopes to distract herself from the irrational, mounting viciousness. Hopes human voices will yank her from the brink of the abyss.

Hope whispers, "I just don't understand why she pushed me away like that." He is speaking of her and he sounds so broken. Anger ebbs. "She was so angry."

"Nah," Snow answers. She should have expected that it would be the two of them. "Not angry, kid. She doesn't get angry with you. Only me," he jokes. His voice holds no humor. "And you shouldn't take it personally. Poison can cause all sorts of nasty hallucinations. Trust me, I speak from experience here. So, she wasn't really in her right mind."

"But..."

"Hey. She let me hold her hand. That should be all the proof you need."

Hope sighs. "Yeah, I guess," he says, though he sounds unconvinced. "It's just…" he trails off.

She hears movement, creaking. Figures it's Snow leaning forward. She can picture the concerned look in his eyes; she's seen it a hundred times over the past two months. "Just what, kid?"

"It's just…she never lets me help her."

Snow chuckles. "Yeah, well that's Light, kid. She's not big on accepting help." She knows she's not imagining the irritation in that comment.

"I know. Lightning's strong and she doesn't need help."

"Wow, has she got you fooled!" Snow snarks. Lightning's face heats at the sarcasm. Her fists tighten further, drawing blood.

Hope continues as if Snow hadn't spoken. "But, back when I first followed her. On Cocoon. In the Vile Peaks. She told me that I was holding her back." Lightning's gut wrenches and it takes all her energy to hold in the kneejerk reaction to deny. To console.

"Hope…" Snow's humor evaporates.

The words pour out of Hope. Weeks of pent up anxiety spilling over like a waterfall. "And I've tried really hard since then to make sure that I was never a burden to her. I mean, I know I'm pretty useless in a fight. But…I could help her with magic. I'm getting good at it." The boy swallows. "She stood between me and every enemy on Cocoon. She got hurt a lot. To protect me. So I figured, at least I could heal her, right? Make sure that she didn't get too hurt. And if she did, then I could fix it."

"Hey, Hope..." Snow has no idea what to say, he's just trying to stop the boy's tirade.

"No! I mean, you can protect her. You're strong and she trusts you..." Snow laughs derisively. She doesn't let herself think too hard about that. "She'll let you protect her but she won't even let me heal her anymore. I just…I'm afraid that I'm becoming a burden to her again."

"Hope!" Snow snaps. "Lightning does not think you're a burden. Don't ever say that. Don't even think it, alright?"

"She said it!"

"When? The day she lost her sister? The day after?" Hope falls silent. "You're too smart a kid to be this dumb! I mean, do I really have to spell it out for you?" There is a long pause where no one speaks. Then, "Lightning was in pain so she hurt everyone and everything. Including herself. No. Especially herself." Snow blows out a hard breath, bracing himself.

"When I first met Lightning, I couldn't stand her." Lightning's face burns. It's not a big revelation, but the admission still hurts her. _The feeling was mutual, Hero._ "I didn't understand how someone so cold and angry could possibly be related to someone as sweet and kind as Serah. Talk about opposites!"

"But Serah set me straight. She told me that she owed everything to Lightning. Lightning protected her; she stood between Serah and anything that would hurt her. She took care of them both after their parents died. And that's not so easy, kid. Trust me. I know what I'm talking about here. So, Lightning learned to protect herself. And the only way that she could do that-hide the hurt and the pain-was by getting angry. She packs everything away and hides it. She ignores it and just does what needs to be done."

"'It's not a question of can or can't. There are some things in life you just do.'" Hope parrots. "That's what she said to me."

"See? So you can't take what she said to you back then to heart. It was never the truth." Snow stops for a minute, swallows; his voice thick from the choking emotion. The memory of Serah is as painful (if not more) for him as it is for her.

He clears his throat. She knows he's trying to regain control. She feels like a twisted voyeur, listening in on their conversation. She has no right to eavesdrop on their private moment. She has no right to know what her sister said to Snow. It is the worst sort of betrayal and she should put an end to it. She finds that she cannot. She has spent so long terrified that Serah transformed _/died/_ not understanding her, that the fear has become a physical oppression. To hear that her sister understood her-loved her even-despite all her mistakes, is like a benediction.

After a moment Snow continues. "And even if she meant it back then, how can you even think for one second that she'd still feel that way? She would die for you, you know that? She almost did today. She would sacrifice herself for you happily." She hears the bitterness in Snow's voice. She hopes that Hope doesn't. "Do you think she'd do that for a someone she considers a burden?"

"No," Hope whispers. "And I know. I know that she would die for me. I know that she almost did today. I felt that thing hit her and the weight of it press down on her when it was trying to attack me. I heard her gasp and felt her flinch at the pain. Don't you get it? That's the problem."

"What's the problem, Hope?"

"I don't want her to die for me. I want her to live...for me. I know that's selfish..."

"Oh, kid..."

"Don't! I don't know if I'll ever see my father again. You and Sazh, Fang and Vanille and Light...you're all I have left. You're my family now."

"You're our family too, kid. That's why we protect you. That's why she would die for you."

"Then it should go both ways. I stood there and watched my mother die!" She can hear the tears in his voice. Her heart wrenches. "I was too terrified to do anything and she died! I don't want to watch anyone else I love die."

"Hey," Snow uses his calming, soothing voice. She knows it too well. "Lightning's not going to die. Okay? Because we're not going to let her."

"But..."

"But nothing. We can't stop her from being her. We can't stop her from protecting you. And we wouldn't want to, would we? But we can do our best to protect her. You and me."

"What if she won't let us?"

Snow laughs. "Since when do I listen to her? If she doesn't know what's good for her, then we'll have to show her." Hope chuckles and Lightning feels like she could kiss Snow for pulling Hope from the brink of despair. "But I need you to do me a favor, alright?"

Hope sounds suspicious. "What's that?"

"You have to let me do the fighting. Because as much as you don't want to see Lightning get hurt, that's how much the rest of us don't want to see anything happen to you. Obviously Lightning is going to do whatever it takes to keep you safe. You want to help me keep her safe? Then you keep yourself safe and out of harm's way.

"In other words, just be useless."

"No. It's not useless to practice self-preservation, kid. You worry about you. You worry about your magic and healing, and you protect yourself and you let me do the fighting. Deal?"

"I know. You made a promise to keep me safe." He sounds bitter. His mercurial mood changes are as exhausting as her own. More. Because she cares far more for Hope's happiness than her own these days.

"Hey!" Snow nearly shouts. Then quieter he says, "Keeping you safe may have started that way. As a promise to your mom and then to Lightning. Now it's a promise to myself, alright? I've lost enough too. And what you said about us being all you have-that goes both ways. You're family now and I protect my family. Okay?"

"Okay," Hope agrees.

"Okay." Snow affirms. "Now go get some sleep. I'm keeping watch."

"But I thought we were doing two man shifts."

"Come on!" Snow chides. "The watch is almost over and I think I can handle the next few minutes alone. What kind of Hero would I be if I couldn't manage to keep watch alone? Get some sleep, kid."

"Stop calling me 'kid'!" Hope sounds irate.

"Not likely, Kid. I'm going to call you 'kid' until your eighty-two. You'll just have to get used to it. Now go!" She hears Hope muttering disparaging comments the whole way to his sleep roll. She continues listening for him, but finds that he's gone to the other side of the camp. She feels Snow's hand land on the back of her neck.

"Did you catch all that, Sis?" The soft question shatters the cracking dam holding back her emotions. She squeezes her eyes tighter, feels the tears burn their way from the corner of her eyes, track across her face to disappear into the pillow of her hair. Her lip quivers, quavers. She fights the downward pull of her lower lip, finds that she's losing the battle. She wants to punch Snow for breaking her apart like flotsam on the rocks.

Snow rubs small circles on her neck with his thumb; his other hand on her shoulder attempts to coax her from her side onto her back to face him. She resists. If she looks at him right now she'll lose her grip on the last shred of her control.

"You gonna tell me why you wouldn't let the kid heal you?" Snow asks. "I mean, you practically gave him a black eye to stop him earlier." She tries to summon the earlier anger in hopes of regaining some control over herself. She's dangerously close to blubbering here. Opening her mouth might just let loose a lifetime's worth of misery. She'll go supernova and never be able to glue herself back together again. "Sis?"

Lightning swallows, steels herself. "Magic makes it worse," she admits, scrunches her nose and squeezes her eyes in order to hold in the tears. She presses a fist to her forehead, as if the pressure of her fingers can hold back the deluge of tears. "It's part of the reason he was fading so quickly. I don't want him hurting himself for me."

Snow's hand has moved from her neck to the base of her head, long fingers worming their way between her skull and the ground, palm cradling, spanning, thumb rubbing soothing circles behind her ear. "So you'll hurt him instead, huh?" She flushes again, angry at the implication. The feel of his thumb behind her ear relaxes her and she realizes that he's trying to soothe the sting of his words away. "Look, Hope's a tough kid, but if you die protecting him, I don't know…I think that'll kill him." Lightning pulls her knees up, curls into herself and sobs.

"Don't cry, Lightning." Snow presses on her shoulder, tries to force her to look at him. She resists, presses her face into the ground to avoid his eyes. "I'm sorry. Come on, Sis. Look at me." He uses both hands and her complete weakness against her to pull her around. "Don't cry." He uses a thumb to wipe a traitorous tear. "I can't stand seeing Farron women cry." Lightning sniffles, meets Snow's eyes.

"So other women crying is okay?" She parries, hoping to spark their usual banter. If she can't summon anger, she'll try for humor instead. Anything to armor herself against this assault.

Snow smiles, "Yeah, Sis. And I kick puppies when I'm bored."

"I knew that about you," Lightning says, swatting tears away with the heel of her hand. Snow smirks at her.

"No, but you thought that about me when we first met."

"I didn't. But I'll admit that I couldn't stand you." It's hard to believe in retrospect.

"Yeah, well, now we know the feeling was mutual." Snow uses the hand behind her head to lever Lightning upright. The world spins a bit and she feels her eyes roll back in her head. "Woah," Snow says. "You alright?"

"Apparently not." Lightning closes her eyes against the budding vertigo, hopes to get a handle on it before it hits her stomach. The move vertical steals her breath with shooting and radiating pains from her injured ribcage. She stifles the wince as best she can, takes shallow breaths in deference to what must be several cracked or fractured ribs. She feels Snow scooch behind her and pull her back against him. She lets her head fall back onto his shoulder, keeps her eyes closed.

"You really need to take care of yourself. You gotta trust us. Trust me and let me help you."

"I do trust you," she says, and is surprised by the total honesty of the statement.

"Then you need to start acting like it. Let me help you and stop aping my hero gig! You're ruining my whole image." She smiles. "I mean really. What would everyone say if they found out that I let a girl nearly die to save my ass today."

"Again with the **girl** crap, Hero!" She snorts. "I'll have you know that I'm twice the man you are!"

"Ha Ha!" His laughter rattles through her. She feels the vibration of it in her own body where her back presses against him. "But seriously, Sis. We work together from now on, alright?"

Lightning opens her eyes, finds the dizziness has passed. She leans forward, looks over her shoulder at Snow. He's so serious. It looks wrong on him. "I really wasn't trying to get myself killed, Snow."

He nods at her. "I know. You saw a chance and you took it. And I know you'll do it again. Just…" she raises an eyebrow at him. "Just be careful. I can't lose…I can't lose you too, alright? Watching Serah turn to crystal made me sick. It tore me in half. And sometimes, all I have to keep me going is the hope she'll come back and I'll see her again."

"You will," she assures. She has to believe that. She has to believe that Serah will live the life she's always wanted with the man she loves. It is Lightning's deepest wish, to see her sister happy.

Snow nods at her. "Yeah, I know," except he no longer sounds convinced. "But you dying…I can't watch it. Not to mention what it'll do the kid. Or everyone else for that matter. And I'll never be able to face Serah again if I let you die. So…don't die. Alright?"

_This. Man._ She's so fondly annoyed by him. How has he managed to crawl under her skin so thoroughly? "You really are an infuriatingly dumb blond sometimes."

Snow smirks at her. "Only sometimes? That's improvement."

"Yeah. And sometimes..."

"Hey, look who finally decided to join us again. Am I interrupting?" Fang asks, knowing damn well she is interrupting, smiling at them with a sinister smirk. She looks every bit as fiendish as the rest of the occupants of Gran Pulse in this moment. "Anything good?" Lightning isn't sure if she is annoyed or thrilled at the interruption. The moment had become a tad uncomfortable for her.

Lightning says to Fang, "Yes. I was just telling Snow that I have some bad news, Fang."

The woman's face drops, her brow furrows. "Oh yeah?" She whips her head from side to side looking for enemies. "What's that, then?"

"I'm sorry to tell you this. I know you're going to be upset...but I think I ruined your shirt." Fang stares at her. Lightning blinks innocently back at her. Snow looks back and forth between the two of them, completely stumped. Fang breaks the moment with a loud chortle.

"You really are a crazy bitch, you know that?"

Lightning breaks out into a wide grin. "Thanks! I'll take that in the spirit in which it's given."

"What are you two talking about?" Snow demands. He's lost and unhappy about it.

"Better if you don't ask, my man," Sazh says.

"Yeah! Kick off why don't ya? Your watch is over. Get some sleep or you'll be even more useless tomorrow!" Fang says. "If that's possible," she mumbles.

"Wait a minute..."

"Go get some sleep, Snow. Someone needs to sleep around here," Lightning says. She has no desire to descend back into the realm of nightmares rattling around in her subconscious.

"Yeah, and that somebody is you, Sis." Snow stands up behind her, grabs her under her arms and lifts. She yelps as he manhandles her up and over his shoulder, hand at her hip to keep her in place. The world wobbles a bit.

"Put me down Snow, or you're going to be very sorry." Lightning says. As there's a good chance she might just hurl all over him, she's only half joking. Snow ignores her and marches over to the bedrolls. Lightning swallows down the drool accumulating in her mouth-a sign of impending vomit if she's not mistaken-and prays that he'll listen to her before she tosses her cookies all over his nice, upgraded coat.

Snow bends down and lowers her until her feet touch the ground. He stands before her with a mischievous smirk. She gut punches him just this side of painful. He lets out an oomph, more shock than pain. She hadn't been aiming to hurt him, just make a point.

"Don't do that again!" She says. He nods at her, breaks out into a huge grin and sweeps her legs out from under her. She hits the bedroll hard. Her ribs send her a warning jab to remind her that rough-housing is off the menu for a while. She ignores them and moves to retaliate but Snow is already sitting on his bedroll beside her.

"You two kids want to stop pulling each other's pigtails and go to sleep? I don't want you waking Vanille. She's a bit worn out. She did have to pull someone back from the brink of death today, after all." Fang stage whispers, eyes shooting daggers. Lightning looks over at the sleeping girl, sees the sickly pallor to her skin.

"Sorry." Snow says, chastised. He lays down and closes his eyes.

"Yeah, sorry," Lightning agrees. She looks at Snow and says, "This isn't over, blondie."

He cracks an eye, lifts one corner of his mouth in a sly smirk. "Bring it on!"

* * *

Lightning lays on her back and stares at the sky. She can still feel the burn across her back where the Amphisbaena's claws scored her. She's never been poisoned before; has never realized just how dreadful it can be. The now nullified toxin has left her dizzy, weakened and all around ill. There is an awful, acidic burn from her gut to her throat causing a vague queasiness. And if the poison isn't enough, she still has to bear the aftereffects of the crush and pummel number done on her ribs. If she closes her eyes, she can almost visualize the tiny cracks and fractures in her ribcage. Vanille has nullified the poison in her body, but she hadn't had enough energy to fix the hairline splits in her ribs. Lightning refuses to complain about them despite the immense discomfort.

She shifts, tries to take some of the pressure off her back, gets a zing from her ribs in complaint. She rolls the other way, and looks at Hope's sleeping face. He looks relaxed and peaceful, and she reaches out, traces her pointer finger over the back of his curled right hand. She feels her mouth pull into a small smile. She listens to Hope's breathing beside her, the steady cadence of a peaceful slumber and feels a sudden, irrational jealousy. She hasn't gotten any real sleep in weeks, no decent sleep for months. No...

Years.

She is exhausted and irate.

She hurls herself onto her other side, ignores the warning stab from her injured ribs. Snow's face is lax in sleep, all signs of his earlier upset absent in repose. Her eyes get heavy, sleep a seductive siren drawing her downward. She snaps them open again, rolls onto her back and stares at Cocoon overhead_._

_Enemy must destroy murderers kill them all need want vengeance monster animal murderers_

She shakes her head, bolts upright in one move. She touches the back of her hand under her nose, pulls it away for a quick check to find it clean. She presses her palm into her burning brand. Her heart pounds double time, a rapid rhythm against her palm, pulse a hard kick against her windpipe. She looks around the camp to see if she's disturbed anyone. Vanille, Snow and Hope sleep on, blissfully unaware of her predicament. She gets up, even more aware of her aching body for her time on the cold, hard ground.

She moves like a geriatric, all her usual grace eradicated by the cocktail of stress, sleeplessness, and injury, with the recent addition of a large dash of poison. Lightning makes her way toward Sazh and Fang on watch, hoping for some distraction from her exhausted agony.

"You up already?" Fang says. "You look like hell! You need to get some sleep."

"Can't sleep," she replies. Fang eyes her up and down, determining the veracity of her statement.

"Too much pain then? Sazh, got anymore of that Elixir?"

"No drugs. No sleep. I'll be fine."

"I beg to differ. No one that pale and pasty will ever qualify as fine. Not anywhere."

"No drugs." She repeats. "NO sleep." She sits down on the ground, wincing as she goes.

"Vanille said she's going to fix your ribs tomorrow. She'd figured that you would sleep through the night," Fang says.

"Yeah, well, sleeping through the night has never been my bag," Lightning replies.

"It was mine once. But hasn't been since my wife died," Sazh says. "My dreams got ugly after that, and sleep became more enemy than friend. That how it is for you, Soldier?"

Lightning gives Sazh an assessing gaze, trying to determine exactly when he became a sneaky bastard. Maybe always, but she figures that it is most likely a l'Cie thing. "Yes. Pretty much."

"You wanna tell me about them? The dreams? Sometimes talking about them helps."

The flare of anger explodes from nowhere. "Do you want to tell me about your dreams, Sazh? Want to talk about the horrors of watching your wife die every night?"

"Hey!" Fang warns.

"No, she's right," Sazh says. "It's a fair question."

Lightning subsides, anger evaporating as suddenly as it had appeared. "No it isn't. I'm sorry. Your dreams have nothing to do with this. Mine might." She pauses. Reconsiders. "Mine do. They **do**," she repeats, convincing herself, "but I don't know how."

"Maybe we can try and help you figure that out then," Fang offers.

Lightning stares into the other woman's eyes and weighs her options. What harm could come from telling them? It can't make the dreams worse. They get worse on their own every time. "Yeah. Okay."

She tells what she can remember. Tells about being different people, different l'Cie, with different brands. She can't remember all her dreams, but she remembers most of the highlights: Cocoon not being, then being. Cocoon not being the enemy, then being the enemy. A living world murdered, city by city, town by town. Being pregnant and sacrificing her baby and herself for the promise of revenge. Crowds of people attacking her until something snaps, and she counter attacks. Harder and with a violent ferocity that follows her back into consciousness. The book.

Ragnarok.

The book that still tickles at her mind when she sits idle long enough. Something so different about that dream.

"That book," Sazh says. "Do you think it really exists?"

_YES! _"I don't know." _Absolutely. _"Why?"

"Because the other dreams sound like memories. And completely horrible and unhelpful ones at that. But the book. That might be something."

"Yeah, but even if she is dreaming the dreams of the ghosts of l'Cie's past and all that Sazh, there's no reason to believe that this book still exists. I mean, this world is fairly unoccupied, right? What makes you think we'll find a book?"

Sazh shakes his head. "You know logically speaking, you're right. But I've been thinking about this for a bit now. And I may be crazy,"

"Who isn't?" Fang interjects.

"but I've got a theory about all this mess," he finishes, ignoring Fang's interruption.

"What's that?" Lightning asks, intrigued.

"Well, I've been thinking about all these bizarre traits that we've...'inherited' for lack of a better word. You know the magic, and the strange alchemy skills. How to upgrade our weapons. The one thing they all seem to have in common is that they benefit us in some way." _Interesting observation except..._

"My blackouts and nosebleeds aren't exactly beneficial."

"True," Sazh says, looking deflated.

"Except for the fact that today they turned you into a killing machine," Fang states. "And they probably just saved your life."

"All our lives, actually." Sazh says.

Lightning rubs her temples. Beneficial. Really? "Okay, say I buy this theory. By your reasoning, these horrible dreams I'm having are supposed to be beneficial? I haven't slept more than two hours at a time since they started. I feel like I've been stomped and steam rolled."

"You look it too..." Fang whispers. Lightning glares at her and she shrugs. "Sorry." Lightning snorts and shakes her head. Hell, no point in being offended when the woman speaks the truth. She looks as a awful as she feels. Worse, even.

"You feel that bad and yet, you're still standing. You're still fighting. You're still alive," Sazh concludes.

"I **am** still alive." She says. She wishes it hadn't sounded so monotone and exhausted. So defeated and accepting. She hadn't meant it that way. Had she? Fang and Sazh share a look. Lightning stomps out their suspicions and derails their racing thoughts by saying, "So, what do you think the dreams mean?"

Fang speaks up this time. "Well I can tell you that there are stories I know of Gran Pulse, though none go back so far as pre-Cocoon. In fact, most of the stories of my village and clan imply that Gran Pulse and Cocoon were made together. Sisters of sorts, until one of them grew mad and envious. It's all nonsense really. Religion melted into mythology. No real fact. Anyway, that's off topic. There are stories about what was done to l'Cie in the past. In the distant past."

"How distant?" Sazh asks.

"Thousands of years. And that's before my time which was hundreds of years ago, or so you all say."

"And what was done to them?" Lightning asks.

"Public executions. Stoning. Floggings. Crucifixions. Burnings at the stake. Drawing and quartering. Breaking on the wheel-do you know what that is? It's not pretty. Arena slayings for entertainment. Real horrid stuff. The stuff of nightmares."

"Yeah." Lightning mutters "Tell me about it." If this is what she has to look forward to, she may never sleep again.

"And every so often, the stories talk of a l'Cie that would rise up and destroy everything and everyone. Raze the city to the ground. Kill 'em all, and all that. You see, those stories were all meant as warnings about l'Cie. And they provided justification for killing l'Cie. Made it easy for regular folk to just torture their neighbors to death. Now, we know what they really are."

"No." Lightning says. "We don't. What do you think they are?"

"Justice." Fang hisses.

"No," Sazh says. Fang narrows her eyes at him and Sazh says, "Well maybe they were that too. But what they really were, were pre-Ark l'Cie training. Think about it."

It clicks with a horrible clarity and simplicity. Lightning feels sick as she says, "So the fal'Cie make l'Cie and give them a focus. But that is never enough. Because l'Cie are just people with who've been touched by a fal'Cie and given some extra powers. Right? People with homes and families; people who just want to live their lives. Probably good, decent people. So how do you get good people to do terrible things?"

Sazh picks up her train of thought. "You take everything from them. You take away their homes, their families; their communities."

Fang breaks in. "More than that, though. If you really want to seal the deal there has to be more. You have to hunt them. Turn everyone against them. You turn them into animals; turn them into prey. Have 'em run for their lives. Have 'em kill to survive. Strip them down to their One. Basic. Instinct. Survival. Yeah?"

The three of them look at one another, none daring to speak. Lightning feels cold to her toes with the knowledge; the feeling of absolute certainty that they've just uncovered a major truth here today. "That's what they did to us. Exactly what they've done to us. To the tiniest detail,"

"Yeah. They took everything from us," Sazh says, no doubt thinking of his son. Fang shakes her head.

"Naw. Not everything." She looks at Sazh, puts her hand on his shoulder. "They left us with each other."

"They probably expected us to kill one another." Sazh says. His eyes go distant, undoubtedly thinking of Vanille and the Sanctum's attempt to have him kill her. He'd told the painful story to Lightning and Snow in one of their many exploratory missions when they'd first arrived on Gran Pulse. The memory still haunts him, Lightning knows. It still bothers him because he'd nearly done it; nearly murdered Vanille in the name of vengeance. "Pare the group down to its strongest members."

Lightning nods at the deduction. They tried to get Sazh to kill Vanille. Hope wanted to kill Snow. She herself had threatened all of them back in the Vile Peaks. Promised they'd be enemies if they ever met again. Lightning is impressed with Sazh's reasoning. She's going to be sure to come to him with all problems of logic from now on. Sazh has a remarkable ability to boil things down to their simplest forms. Make things remarkably clear to her.

"Too bad for them that we're still human," Lightning pats Sazh's knee, trying to snap him out of his funk. She's not sure if Fang knows of the near miss back on Nautilus. At this point, it's old news, and no good will come of mentioning it. "So what do we do about this? And what does this mean about the book? None of this really means that the book is real? Or that we should look for it."

"I think if some of the dreams are real-and based on what Fang just told us, I think they are-we have to assume they're all real," Sazh deduces. "Don't we? Help me out here."

Fang wavers. "I don't know. Even if the book is real, we have no idea where to start looking. How would that be different than just wandering around aimlessly?" Lightning nods her agreement.

"I don't think we'll have to look too hard for it, ladies. I think that you'll know where to look for it if we get close to it."

Lightning's hand flies to her brand. "What makes you say that?" Does his brand pull at him too? Drag him in strange directions.

"What the hell else am I going to believe? This is all so ridiculous, I either have to believe all of it, or none of it, right?" Sazh says. Fang snorts and Lightning giggles. Sazh smiles, thoroughly pleased with himself.

"Funny man, hey?" Fang says and snorts another laugh.

"Nope. Just honest and practical. We've got nothing left but faith." Fang pulls out a flask.

"I'll drink to that. Cheers!" She takes a swig and hands it to Sazh. He takes a gulp, winces.

"Damn, woman! What the hell is that?"

"It's good is what it is! Yeah?" Sazh takes another drink, swears under his breath and takes a third sip before handing it to Lightning.

She sniffs at the drink. It smells like antiseptic, flowers and burnt wood. Not exactly an appetizing combination. "What the hell," she mumbles and takes a sip.

Amazingly, it tastes almost exactly like it smells-terrible.

"Bleck," Lightning says. "That is..." she clears her throat, "truly repulsive."

"You want another sip then, do you?" Fang laughs, and tucks the flask away again. "So, let me see if I have this straight. Our plan is to have no plan? Is that the deal here? Because if it is, I think we've all been spending far too much time with the hero over there." She jerks her thumb at a snoring Snow.

Sazh laughs and shakes his head. "No. The plan is to continue what we're doing. And follow our guts. And if the soldier here thinks she might take a run at finding that book, I'll go with her while the rest of you push on."

Lightning is stunned. "Why would you do that? Just follow me?"

"Hell, Soldier. I've been following you since the day we met, haven't I? You haven't steered me wrong yet."

Nothing left but faith, he'd said. Lightning isn't sure what to do with that faith now that he's placed it in her.

* * *

TBC...

I know this one is a bit dialogue heavy. Hope it wasn't too much for you.  
I may not have another one up next week. I'll try, but I think I need to get a bit ahead of this beast. We're at about 75,000 words now and this started out as a ONE SHOT! I swear. Maybe Two. I certainly never expected it to overshoot 100k words, but since we still haven't gotten off the Archylte Steppe yet, I'm thinking that's a no brainer.  
I will post warnings if/when the torture factor increases. Some of the tortures mentioned in this chapter are horrifying brutal and enough to make my stomach turn. I want you to know that I research for authenticity, so if I go there, it will be brutal. I promise to warn.

As always, I look forward to hearing from you.


	13. Schism

Thanks for all your feedback! I really was going to hold off on this chapter until I got a bit further along into the story, but I'm tired of re-reading and revising it. So, I'm posting it.

* * *

-Schism-

They break camp and start moving just before sunrise the next day. Lighting, Sazh and Fang keep quiet about the previous evening's conversation and revelations. Ideas that seem great in the long hours of the deep night tend to lose their luster once dawn breaks. They all seem to silently agree to let things alone for now and focus on the day ahead. There are immediate decisions and problems with which they need to deal. Theories and conjectures can wait.

Fang insists on pushing hard for the borders of the Archylte Steppe, and considering yesterday's events, no one much feels like arguing. They are all eager to be quit of this Steppe. The previous day's battles and the subsequent poisoning have left Lightning feeling light-headed, hollow and disconnected. A foul taste lurks at the back of her throat; there is a hint of burn from her mouth to her gut. Her whole body throbs with a buzzing ache. Add exhaustion and the pain from her cracked ribs into the mix, and her entire body feels leaden. Slow. Unreliable.

The fact that Vanille manages to sneak up on her just proves her assessment. "How are you feeling today?"

Lightning sighs. She feels awful but there's no use in complaining. "Okay."

Vanille looks her over. Lightning can tell that Vanille doesn't believe her, but all she says is "Well, you're probably dehydrated from the poisoning. Make sure you drink plenty of water." She doesn't even wait for confirmation before reaching for Lightning. "Alright, let me see about those ribs." Lightning looks Vanille up and down for a moment. The girl is pale and pasty, obviously still worn out from saving her life the previous day. Lightning steps out of reach before Vanille can lay hands on her.

"I'm fine." Her ribs remind her that they are, in point of fact, **not** fine by delivering a sharp jolt of pain. Lightning clenches her teeth and does her best to hide the wince. Unsurprisingly, she fails. "Don't worry about it."

"Lightning..." Vanille huffs.

"It's fine Vanille. I can deal with it for a day." It's painful, but not unreasonably so. She's had far worse. Recently, in fact. Vanille digs her heels in.

"Don't be stubborn."

"Don't be stupid," Lightning snaps. Vanille looks stricken and Lightning feels like an ass. Snapping at Vanille is like kicking a puppy. She soothes the barb by saying, "One of us playing sick and injured is bad enough. I would really rather not have one third of our group weakened while we're still out on the Archylte Steppe. Okay? Another day won't kill me."

Vanille doesn't look convinced, but Lightning knows she's won. Vanille is simply in no shape to argue. Her eyes are ringed with dark circles and fine lines speaking of deep pain and exhaustion. She may have enough energy in her to heal Lightning, but only just. Lightning's own injury isn't life threatening. Vanille risking her health in order alleviate some pain is unacceptable. Lightning is a soldier. She's been trained to deal with pain and she'll manage for the day.

If she keeps saying it, she might even start believing it.

Vanille heaves a resigned sigh. "Alright. But you need to take a painkiller-no arguments-and you can't carry anything except your weapons."

Not carry anything? "I'm not an invalid."

Vanille talks right over her. "Otherwise, I'll tell Snow that you're still injured and you can fight it out with him. I can tell how much you like having him hover." Lightning's jaw drops then snaps shut in an immediate effort to stifle her shock. "That's the deal. Take it or leave it."

_Holy. Blackmail! _

Lightning wants to be annoyed but she's too impressed. Vanille has just outmaneuvered her like a Pro. When did Vanille become manipulative? Apparently, they are all bad influences on each other.

"Deal?" Vanille asks. Lightning nods at her.

"Alright, deal," Lightning concedes. Truth be told, she's not real anxious to hike at all today. Every move, every breath, is painful. She's not planning on fighting for the privilege of carrying eighteen kilos of gear while hurting this much. Not just to assuage her bruised ego or wounded pride.

"Good, because Fang and Sazh have already split your gear between them." Vanille half skips to her own satchel, scoops it up and says, "Alright. Let's go."

Lightning stares after the girl for one stunned moment _(How the hell did that happen?) _before shaking her head and following after her.

The walk across the Steppe during the day is uneventful, a fact for which Lightning is infinitely grateful. Her entire body aches and throbs with the aftereffects of the poison. Each step hurts more than the last. Each shallow breath she takes delivers a stab of pain right through her body. She can't get a full lungful of air, and the harder she tries, the more her chest hurts. She feels all the muscles in her body burn and twitch and she pulls up short to take a drink. Her chest hurts so much that even the simple task of swallowing seems insurmountable.

"You alright, Sis?" Lightning wipes the back of her hand across her mouth and glances over at Snow. He looks well rested for the first time in weeks. At least someone is feeling better today. She feels like road kill.

"Mmm hmm, " she hums noncommittally. She's tired of lying (and tired of telling the truth) about the state of her health. She would like to avoid the topic if possible, so she stays nonverbal. If she speaks he'll hear the pain. He has gotten entirely too good at reading her and she's not interested in worrying him. Or arguing with him. Their verbal spars suck her already waning energy.

"You sure? You don't look so hot."

"Thanks." She deadpans, hoping to introduce some distracting humor. She avoids eye contact in favor of scanning the surroundings. She is really not interested in having this conversation.

"That's not what I meant," Snow backpedals, upset that he's insulted her appearance. _He's so easy. _She could divert this entire line of conversation by playing offended. She considers it for a moment before deciding against it. It would take entirely too much energy. She decides not to let him suffer.

"I know that's not what you meant. It's been a rough few days." Lightning stares into the distance, seeking the cavern entrance Fang insists lies at the base of the mountains ahead. Mah'Habara. Fang insists it's the best path to Oerba. An underground system of caverns deep under the mountains, certain to be full of wildlife. The best path. She wonders how terrible the other paths might be if this is their best option. Still, despite all the dangers in Mah'Habara, Lightning wishes that they were there already. She needs a rest. She rolls her eyes at her own internal whining, considers smacking herself for it. "Let's go."

She takes one step and the world darkens. Her stomach bottoms out at the abrupt change. She reaches for her weapon, finds the holster gone. Panic chokes her as she gropes at her hips for her weapons. They are gone. Her holsters are gone. Her clothes are...unfamiliar. The material under her hand is not the leather of her gear, but a fine linen material. She speeds past confused straight into terrified. She looks up to find the cause of the darkness, half expects to find a monster bearing down upon her. There is no monster. There is no sun. Day has turned to night in one step. She looks over at Snow, seeking something familiar in this bizarre world. He is no longer beside her. The space where he'd been standing is empty.

"Snow?" she says, terror growing to epic proportions. It's one thing to lose her mind. It's quite a different thing to lose her friends. Her family. She spins around. "Snow," she repeats. Her whole body trembles. "SNOW!" she yells, doubling over when her ribs scream back at her. She braces her arm around her aching torso and moves. "Fang? Vanille? Sazh?" Each step is another name. Each step rattles her battered ribs. "HOPE!" She screams as her knees hit the ground.

She curls until her head presses to her knees. She folds both hands over the top of her head and breathes. She needs to figure this out. There has to be an explanation that she is just too frazzled to see. She needs to get a grip. She needs to understand. She can't do that if she falls to pieces on the ground.

"Get a grip, Lightning. You don't have time for this. Figure things out now; fall apart later." _Act calm and you'll be calm. Fear can be an ally. Panic is always the enemy._ She grasps for her training. She breathes for a few minutes to deal with her fear and squash her panic. "Now get up!" The quiet, calm order spurs her into action and she finds her calm and her feet. The darkness melts away and she squints into the bright sunlight, into Snow's panicked eyes.

"Lightning!" Snow's fingers press fresh bruises into her biceps. He's shaking her, shouting at her. The vein in his forehead stands out with the strain. "Lightning?" She blinks.

"What?" she asks. It's a stupid question. He's obviously witnessed whatever the hell just happened to her. Snow sags with relief, unclenches his fingers but keeps hold of her. She's terrified him. "What's going on?" Snow lets go of her arms.

"I think that's my question, Sis."

"I..." _have no idea how to play this, _"don't know what you mean." Not really a lie. She has no idea what the hell just happened.

She braces for the imminent explosion. Snow surprises her by skipping angry going straight to weary. "I'm so tired of this," he sighs. The declaration pisses her off. _He's tired of this?_

"I don't. Know. What. Happened." She annunciates each word to make her point. It doesn't matter. Snow clearly doesn't believe her. "I don't." He just shrugs at her; that riles her, gets her back up. "You know what? Whatever. We need to move."

"That's it? Whatever? We need to move?" She's used to Snow's concern. She's even used to his anger. Exasperated sarcasm is still virgin territory for her.

"What would you like me to say?" Lightning raises her voice and gets a sharp chest jab for her trouble. She winces, puts her hand against her ribs for support.

"What the hell is that? What's wrong?" Snow yells. "Why won't you just tell me what's going on? I thought that we were in this together! Didn't we just say that? I mean, do you tell me you trust me just to shut me up?" Lightning heaves a sigh, winces, and growls in frustration.

"Look, I'm tired Snow." The admission takes all the wind out of her sails; deflates her puffed up anger as quick as a pin pressed to a balloon. Her exhaustion bleeds through her next words. "I'm just so tired. I'm tired of spending all my time on my guard and minding my every move. Can't you just...give me a break?" She closes her eyes and rubs her head.

"I don't know what happened. I don't know if I'm sick, exhausted, hallucinating, dreaming, poisoned or just losing my damn mind. Maybe it's all of the above. I don't know. All I know is that I'm fighting myself every minute of every day. I just don't have the energy left over to fight with you too. Can't you just cut me some slack here and ease up?"

There is a long, pregnant pause. Snow looks beaten. "Alright, Sis." He sounds so stricken. Guilt gnaws at her. She doesn't want him to worry. She doesn't want him to feel like he needs to shut up about his concern. She feels terrible for using his concern against him but she's on the brink of a breakdown here. She's running on empty now. All her reserves are just tapped out. It takes all her concentration just to stay on her feet, keep moving forward and not get herself and everyone else killed. So she feels bad for using Snow's feelings against him, but at this point, she's prepared to use any weapon in her arsenal, regardless of consequences.

Speaking of weapons, her hands do a quick grope for hers, finds everything right where it belongs and sighs her relief. That vision (or whatever) has left her raw. The idea that her dreams and blackouts have started bleeding into the waking world is frightening. She's been avoiding sleep to spare herself. If she can't even hide from this deterioration while awake anymore, she may very well have passed the point of no return. She may have to reevaluate the situation and reconsider her current course of action.

She shakes herself from her thoughts to deal with the matter at hand. Snow looks toward where the group is still moving. He's ready to concede to her request and let the matter drop. Victory has never tasted so bitter. She should leave things alone. She finds she can't. Hurting him used to be second nature. Now she finds it repugnant. "Look, I'm trying. Alright?"

"It's alright Lightning." He sounds defeated. Nothing could be further from alright. "You're right. I'm sorry..."

"Oh no, don't do that. Don't apologize! That just makes it worse!" She can see his resignation morph into frustration. Good. Frustration she can deal with. Match even. "I'm just so sick of feeling awful all the time. And then feeling like I have to hide it because I don't want to worry everyone. And when I can't, I get accused of lying, but I really don't know what the hell is wrong with me and I'm Just. So. Sick. of talking about feeling sick, not to mention how sick I am of actually feeling awful. I just want one day to go by without having to worry about falling to pieces. And I just want to walk and get off of this Steppe before we get attacked by another animal." Snow's eyes are round. That's probably the longest speech Lightning has ever given pertaining to herself and her feelings. She hopes to keep it that way.

"Alright," he whispers. "I wish you didn't feel like you had to hide feeling sick." He looks at her hand resting against her ribcage. "Or being injured."

_Me too._

"But you're right. I should ease up. I mean, it's your business right? Who am I to..." Sirens are sounding in her head. Something bad is happening. She's just not sure what, or why. Snow's eyes look suspiciously wet as he says, "It's just..."

"I know..." It's just that she's all he has left of Serah. If something happens to her, he's failing Serah all over again. She knows. Most of the time, that's okay. But she can't hear him say it. She can't see him break down again. She's holding on to the tatters of her control by her fingernails. She can't hear him speak of her sister again today after the previous evening's heartbreaking revelations. And right now, she's tired of being the ghost of her sister to him. She's tired of having the power to hurt him. It's not her right! He's given her too much power and she doesn't want it, damn it! Why does he care so much? The more concerned he gets, the more she tries to be okay for him. The harder she tries, the worse she feels. The worse she feels, the more concerned he gets. At this rate, he's going to kill them both with his concern.

Snow nods, looks away from her and walks away. She stands her ground, rubbing her forehead and trying desperately to rein in her spiraling emotions. She sends up a plea to anything that might be listening for a break. Anything. Just one minute of peace.

Her neck tingles and the hairs on her arm stand up in answer. She looks around, scanning the area for threats; for the predator that has zeroed in on her. Her brand burns and she knows. **Knows.**

"You have got to be kidding me," she mumbles. _So much for peace. _If Barthandelus's damn 'Creator' had been standing before her right then, she'd have unloaded her weapon into whatever passed for its face to show it just how much she appreciates its twisted sense of humor.

* * *

Fang calls a halt as the sky reddens with the imminence of sunset. Snow has been casting surreptitious glances at Lightning all day, but has not spoken a single word to her since their conversation earlier. It hurts, this distance that she's created. She knows that she has damaged something that had become precious to her. Perhaps permanently. She knows that she has made Snow feel that his concern is hurting her. The idea is not without some truth, yet she had never wanted to say such a thing. She longs to go over and take everything back, erase the hurt she's inflicted upon him, but you can't un-ring a bell. The easy camaraderie of just last night is gone. She wonders if they'll get it back.

She wonders if she should try.

Lightning sits down as far from the others as possible. Snow's eyes burn into her back and she wants to call him over; try to bury this new tension thrumming between them. She glances over at him, and his eyes wander, refuse to meet hers.

She's hurt him.

"Great job, Lightning," she mumbles to herself. She's not quite sure how she's managed to screw things up so badly when all she'd really wanted was a bit of space. That's not asking too much. Is it?

She slams the door on the whole line of thought. There are too many real problems right now. She doesn't have the energy to waste on pondering her increasingly complicated relationship with Snow. Or anybody, for that matter.

She lets her thoughts drift to the latest manifestation of her 'episodes.' Waking dreams. Or hallucinations. Snow had witnessed the entire episode. She wonders what it looked like from the outside. Inside, it had been like a stroll in another universe in somebody else's body. She glances back at Snow, considers calling him over to discuss the issue. His eyes dart from her as soon as she looks over, his back stiffens and he starts speaking to Sazh. Sazh casts a wary glance at her, meets her eyes and shrugs. He sees the tension, though he's clueless as to its source.

She's pretty clueless herself. _All the finesse of a sledgehammer,_ she reminds herself.

She gives Sazh a small smile and glances over at Fang. Maybe she'll talk to her about it. As bizarre as the situation might be, Fang is fast becoming a confidant to her. The other woman is gruff and abrasive, but her humor and her ability to take it on the chin is a bonus. She might be able to provide an objective point of view in this situation, where her other companions would only wring their hands with worry. Yeah, she might try talking it out with Fang. Later. There are more important matters at hand now.

Fang stares into the growing darkness, tracing their intended path with her eyes. She looks as if she's as eager to move on as Lightning. Lightning decides it's time to talk to her about their game plan. She needs to tell her about the stalking threat in the darkness. She pulls her aching self from the ground inch by painful inch. She can feel Snow's eyes follow her miserable movements. She ignores him. She needs to put him and the events of today out of her mind if she's going to focus. Her concentration is too spotty, her mind too slow and numb with weariness, to allow this distraction in a crisis. Survival needs to take precedence over hurt feelings. She tells herself that he'll get over it, and hopes that she's right.

She can feel the eyes of the predator on her, its malice and hunger growing more potent with each passing moment. She knows they need to move on or prepare for attack. Ordinarily the choice would be a no brainer for her. She prefers to confront things head on; deal with danger immediately and eradicate its source. As injured and weary as she is, she believes that discretion is the better part of valor here, and she would prefer to avoid this confrontation altogether at this point. She hobbles over to the other woman, speaking her name to avoid startling her.

"What's up?" Fang turns to look at her. Frowns. "You look like hell." Fang looks her up and down and says, "those ribs are still hurting you bad, eh?"

"Yeah." Fang takes her by the arm, and leads her to a boulder. Lightning refuses to be sidetracked. "We need to keep moving."

"Sit down." Fang ignores her and helps her ease down onto the rock. Sitting offers some relief from the pain. "You wanna tell me why you haven't had those healed up?"

"Vanille looked too sick today. That's not important. I think if we keep moving, we can reach the base of the mountains by morning."

Fang refuses to acknowledge her suggestion. "And what about the kid? Vanille tells me he's stronger than she is with that healing magic."

"Hope?" Lightning shakes her head, denying the suggestion immediately. "No..."

"You know what, you need to worry a little less about everyone else and a lot more about yourself starting right now. I mean, I understand your concerns. I really do. " Fang gives Lightning a hard look. "I don't know if you've noticed, my friend, but you are circling the drain."

Lightning heaves a hard sigh. "I'm fine."

"Oh please. You don't get to look," Fang waves her hand up and down in front of Lightning, gesturing at her whole body, "like that, and then tell me you're fine. And I can't take a thing you say seriously if you keep trying to pull that crap with me. Hope..."

"Hey!" Lightning snaps. Fang is completely out of line.

"Hey yourself! I'm not the kid or the Hero. You can't bully me. Now you listen to me, Miss Soldier. You," Fang points her finger right in Lightning's face, "made your health my business when you made it my responsibility to **kill** you if you turn, in case you've forgotten. If you think that I'm just going to sit here and watch you destroy yourself so I have to make good on my word, you're insane. Now sit down and shut up!" Lightning's mouth hangs open in shock. "Hope, can you come over here please?"

Hope hops up and walks over, look cautious and curious. "What's up?"

"Lightning needs a healing spell. Would you be so kind?" Lightning feels her face burn, her head pound with ire. She turns her glare toward Hope and the boy steps back. Snow walks up, obviously unable to mind his own business.

"What's going on?" Snow asks.

"Our resident martyr decided to spend the day wandering around with cracked ribs," Fang supplies.

"What?" Snow snaps, glares at her then looks away. "Cracked ribs," he mumbles, like he should have known it all along.

"Yeah. And our little healer in training is going to fix her up. **Now**," Fang snaps out the last word, and Hope flinches. He approaches Lightning as if she were a wild animal.

Lightning keeps her eyes burning into Fang. She knows the woman is right, but still holds onto her rage and betrayal like a shield. Hope's fingers touch her shoulder, trace down over her back. "You're still all bruised Light. It looks really bad." Snow stiffens, obviously holding himself in check. "Why didn't you say anything?" Snow tenses even further, muscles twitching under the strain of holding still. She ignores Snow's growing rage, focuses on her own as she feels Hope call upon his magic; he sends it into her like a cooling balm seeking out every sore spot in her torso. The magic wraps around her ribs, fills each groove up, eases the swelling in the muscles and connective tissues surrounding them. She closes her eyes in relief as the pain ebbs and disappears, leaving only an aching soreness in its wake.

"How's that?" Hope asks.

"Much better," she sighs. "Thank you, Hope." Lightning is amazed at how much better she feels. Her pain is gone, and with it, her anger, like they are two halves of one whole. Perhaps they are.

"You should have told me earlier. I would have fixed you up before we left."

"It wasn't that bad this morning. The walking made it worse." It's not really a lie. While it had hurt this morning, ten hours of hiking over rough terrain had made it infinitely worse.

"Well, you should have said something then," Snow snaps. He looks angry, probably more at himself than her, as he grits his teeth and walks away.

"What the hell crawled up his ass?" Fang wonders. She looks over at Hope. "Would you mind calming the hero down?"

"How am I supposed to do that?" Hope's voice cracks. He blushes scarlet in embarrassment. Lightning hides her smile behind her fist. It's so easy to forget that this boy is only fourteen years old, subject to all the embarrassments of pubescent boys everywhere. Unfortunately for him, his body has a less convenient memory.

Life can be cruel.

"Well, you can try talking to him," Fang suggests. "And if that doesn't work, hit him with a sleep spell. Or a damn rock. I don't really care which at this point. Just settle him down. He needs to cool off." Hope looks horrified at the prospect. Lightning chuckles at the look on his face. Hope sneers, shakes his head and walks off, mumbling disgruntled curses the whole way. "Where did he learn to curse like that?" Lightning gives Fang a disbelieving look. "What?"

"If I were to guess, I'd say...you!"

"Me?" She looks at Hope then back at Lightning. "I don't swear!"

"Really?" Lightning asks. Fang looks like she wants to deny it some more.

"Alright, maybe I swear sometimes." Lightning laughs and Fang joins her. "Anyway, what crazy insanity were you talking before? You want to keep walking through the night? On the Archylte Steppe? With all the big giant monsters? Any particular reason?"

Lightning sighs. "The predator is back." Fang looks confused. "The Alpha Male from yesterday morning. With the pack."

"Oh, you're kidding!" Fang looks around. "How do you know?"

Lightning tries to think of the simplest answer. There isn't one. "I just do."

Fang growls in frustration. "Do me a favor. Cut the cryptic crap and give it to me straight."

"Alright. I can feel it. It can feel me. And it's going to keep coming after me until one of us is dead. I know, because it's my brand new focus from that Cie'th stone."

"You're joking!" Fang declares. She takes one look at Lightning's face and recants. "Nope. You're not joking. Just great! Maybe next time you all will listen to me and stop being such damn do-gooders." Fang rakes her hands through her hair. "Alright. So, through the night we go then. I've always wanted to see if I could dodge Adamantoises blind."

_Just great._

* * *

No one is happy about their midnight stroll, but they keep quiet about it. Fang tells the group that they're being stalked and hunted and they all decide that moving is the better option. None of them are real eager to repeat the events of the previous day.

They set off in a tight group in order to avoid losing each other in the darkness. Lightning hangs close to the back, searching the darkness for any visible sign of their stalking predator. She might as well shut her eyes for all the good they are doing her. The blackness is near absolute on the Steppe tonight. There is a low, thick cloud cover that blocks out all view of the stars, and almost completely obscures Cocoon from view. The impermeable darkness combined with the ominous storm clouds mixes to create a close, almost claustrophobic feeling out on the plateau, and the sky hovers so close overhead it feels like a weight about to drop on them.

Lightning shivers in the cooling night air. Her body is wracked with tremors now from the rapidly descending temperatures. The further north they march, the more drastic the overnight temperature drops. Winter is coming, and based on the shortening days, lengthening nights and rapidly descending temperatures, she's guessing it's coming soon. With their luck, it'll probably be here tomorrow.

Fang stops abruptly causing everyone to stumble in an effort not to crash into one another. She holds a finger to her lips, then points toward the sky. Hope stands beside Lightning and gives her a confused look. Lightning looks up, can't see anything but the low hanging sky.

The **breathing**, low hanging sky.

She inhales sharply, then bites down on the gasp. Hope opens his mouth to ask a question but Lightning stifles it with a hand over his mouth. She pulls Hope around, stares into his wide frightened eyes and shakes her head. She holds a finger to her lips, releases his mouth, and points upward. Hope stares at the sky like a child staring at posters with hidden 3D images. He squints until the image resolves itself and he finally sees what they are seeing.

A sea of sleeping giants.

One noise will reduce them all to paste. They all hold their breath and tip toe through the herd of Adamantoises. Lightning is glad that these giant creatures are not carnivores. If they were, the rank, ripe fear in the air would rouse them from their slumber faster than any noise. Lightning can hear Hope's racing heartbeat as clearly as her own in the still, silent night.

The silent walk through the sleeping herd is eternal. The six companions barely breathe as they wind their way through the sleeping animals' legs. Each time Lightning thinks they've cleared the herd, they encounter three more Adamantoises looming over them like four legged mountains. Lightning wishes she could growl just to vent some pent up frustration. She doesn't dare.

Meanwhile, the menace from their stalking predator is growing. She knows that the pack is somewhere out there in the night, waiting and watching patiently. She would pray for them to hold off their attack except fate has been a real fickle and spiteful bitch these days and will probably sick the pack on them now just to spite her. Instead of praying, Lightning grabs Hope and speeds up. The boy stumbles, gasps as he starts to topple over. Lightning spins, catches him and clamps a hand over his mouth in one move. She holds her breath, looks around to see if they've been heard. The sleeping animal above them stirs, shifts and snorts before settling back into slumber. Hope shakes in her arms and she holds him tighter for a moment before letting go.

She pulls Hope to his feet, grabs his hand and hauls him onward. They are boxed in here, and if these animals startle and stampede, there won't be enough left for the scavengers to pick over. Fang signals the all clear up ahead. They have almost made it.

The flash of blue white light startles her. It's gone before her brain can process it, but sparks and stars fire before her eyes proving its existence. Her heart stalls then pounds with dread. Not at the flash, but at what it portends. The ever slower but constant companion.

Thunder.

"Run," she whispers.

Hope and she take off at a hard sprint as the thunder rolls, roars overhead. The low ceiling of the sky opens up, pours icy water down. The once sleeping animals buck at the twin shocks of noise and water. They bay and stomp, shaking the now wet ground. Hope loses his footing and skids, dragging down on Lightning's supporting arm, whips her around and tears her off her feet. Her left knee hits the wet grass as Hope's hand slips from her grasp. Hope pinwheels his arms, manages to keep his footing, but the stumble costs them both. Lightning is still on one knee when the monster above them jumps, shakes the ground and sends her down onto her face. Hope grabs handfuls of her cloak to haul her up. She presses off the ground and is on her feet in under a second but the damage is done. She grabs Hope by his elbow and yanks him forward, drives him onward. The shaking, wet ground slows her too much and she spends a horrified heartbeat convinced that the animal's back foot is going to crush them any moment.

Snow appears out of nowhere. He grabs onto Hope, hurls him over his shoulder and yells, "I got him. Move!" She doesn't even pause to say thanks. She grits her teeth and runs. Another flash of lightning startles the now conscious animals. The flash gives her a view of the entire herd, now awake, stomping and preparing to stampede. She loses a step and Snow catches up to her, passes her, yells, "Move it, Sis!" She's already in motion as she glances at him, sees the foot bearing down on him.

She doesn't waste breath to warn. She launches herself at Snow with every ounce of strength in her body, catches him around the waist with her right shoulder and spills all three of them onto the ground. She feels breeze off the giant leg as it sails over them and crashes into the wet earth less than three meters away. She doesn't even glance at it. Lightning rolls, grabs Hope beneath his armpits and drags him upright as Snow pulls himself out of the mud. Snow is up before she can steady Hope on his feet; he has the boy over his shoulder and is moving as the thunder from the last lightning bolt starts rumbling.

The ground rolls like a stormy sea beneath their feet. They are running blind, dodging and weaving, sticking and moving as the world threatens to swallow them. She's lost sight of their companions in the melee, so she sticks close to Snow and Hope. Considering the driving rain and near absolute darkness, she's surprised that she and Snow haven't tripped one another in their effort not to lose each other.

"Where the hell are we going?" Snow pants. She ignores the question and presses on, hoping to get clear of the danger zone. She doesn't have the breath to speak. Her muscles and lungs burn. This particular situation would have been challenging if she had been in perfect health. Aching, weak and exhausted as she is, it may very well prove to be fatal. Hope may have sealed over the cracks in her ribs and reduced the swelling in the soft tissue around them, but he could not erase the pervasive soreness or weariness. Only genuine rest can provide that relief for her, and she doubts she'll get that again in her lifetime.

"Mah'Habara," Vanille yells from ahead and Lightning homes in on the yell, smacks Snow's shoulder and switches direction. Snow is right at her elbow, hauling ass. Another lightning bolt spiders through the clouds, shattering the darkness. Lightning glimpses the silhouettes of Fang, Sazh and Vanille ahead of them charging toward a break in the cliff face.

"There," Lightning yells.

"I see it," Snow grunts back. He redoubles his efforts, pulling out ahead of her despite the extra burden.

Her brand flares up with a heat and pain that startle her breathless. The shock slows her down as she gropes at the pain on her sternum. Something moves in her periphery, and she turns toward it, weapon already drawn, blade out. A lightning flash reveals her stalker bearing down on her, teeth glinting, yellow eyes narrowed. Her lips pull into a sneer as she widens her stance, prepares to put an end to this monster's pursuit. Her heart pounds in her ears like war drums.

The animal pulls up, changes directions and charges towards a fleeing Snow and Hope. Lightning shouts, charges, feels the energy around her build, coalesce and explode forward. She lands on her butt, stares after the tornado flying toward her enemy. The wind catches and tangles the animal's back legs, trips it, lifts it and sends it sprawling. She regains her feet and charges towards the downed animal, blue fire streaking down her blade. Her whole body crackles with building magic. Her head buzzes, thrills. Anticipation for a good kill tingles through her whole body. Her stalker rolls, gets on its feet and disappears into the darkness.

She stares into the black, eyes shifting back and forth, seeking any sign of movement in the dark. The ground rattles, shocks her back into motion. She forgets her stalker and turns, takes off for the mouth of the cavern. Another tremor, this one harder, shakes the ground and sends her sprawling. She gets to her knees as another stomp topples her back onto her face. She crawls hoping to get some momentum and distance but another footstep sends her down again. She tears a chunk out of her elbow and forearm on a jagged rock.

An arm loops around her, lifts her off her knees onto her feet. "Move it, Sis!" Snow yells as he clamps around her arm and drags until she catches up to him. He lets go as she gets her second wind and outpaces him, sprints past him and makes for the near invisible entrance to Mah'Habara.

There is another lightning flash as she clears the entrance to Mah'Habara. She stops to breathe just inside the cavern entrance, watches Snow dart past her and gets a look at the Adamantoises heading right for the cave. Snow hooks her arm as he runs past and drags her away from the mouth of the cavern. The approaching animals are charging the cliff face in either rage or panic. Small rocks and debris fall from the cave ceiling with each step, dumping pebbles and gravel into her eyes and hair. They need to get clear of the entrance before the charging Adamantoises gets too close and send the entire ceiling collapsing onto them.

"Keep going!" Snow yells. His fingers dig into Lightning's arm as he drags her through the tunnel. The darkness inside the cavern is absolute and Lightning is half afraid that Snow's going to run them head first into a wall. She hears panting and foot falls as the rest of her friends run down the tunnel. She and Snow are hard on their heels as the thunder peels outside.

Something hard and round strikes her right shoulder. The joint complains, sends a tingling stab to her fingertips. She stumbles and grunts at the impact but Snow just pulls her harder. Her heart races like a locomotive; her lungs are on fire. She can still feel the ground shaking from the stampede outside. Each shake pours more silt, dirt and pebbles onto her head and into her eyes. The falling debris stings her eyes, sends tears pouring down her face. She uses her right hand to brush the debris from her eyes, ends up smearing blood from her fresh wound into them.

She pulls up short in hopes for a break, but Snow just pulls harder. He ends up taking her right off her feet. She hits the ground with both knees, gets dragged a few feet before she yells, "Wait." Snow doesn't answer, just gets a grip under both arms and lifts, puts her on her feet, clamps his hand around her arm and runs again. The floor shakes again, nearly sends her back to the ground.

"Get a move on, Sis!" She doesn't argue the point. She ignores her hurting body and concentrates on staying on her feet. Snow stumbles, swears and catches air. He hits the ground and takes her with him. She hits hard, air exploding from her on impact. She hears Snow moving, scrambling in the dark. "Sis?" His hand brushes her knee, pats its way up to her shoulder. "You alright? Did I hurt you?"

"No," she lies. She's still trying to re-inflate her lungs. Snow manhandles her off the floor while she pants, grabs a hold of her wrist and moves again, albeit with far less gusto. "Are you hurt?" she grunts.

"I've been better," he replies. "Where the hell are they?"

"Right in front of you, Hero." Fang's voice comes across the darkness, startling them both immobile. She can hear everyone breathing and panting in the darkness.

"Everyone alright?" Lightning asks. "Where's Hope?"

"Over here." Lightning stares into the darkness looking for any hint of the boy to no avail. "I'm okay."

"I'd like to make a request," Sazh speaks up from somewhere to Lightning's right. "Let's NEVER do that again, alright?"

Snow starts snickering next to her. "I second that. But at least we made it, right?"

"Oh yeah," Sazh says, tone dripping with sarcasm. "We made it alright. The only trouble is, where the hell are we?"

"Grump, grump. Don't you gents ever stop complaining?" Fang remarks. "Vanille, any way we can get some light in here?"

"I got it." Vanille's voice is further down the corridor. A small fire spell brightens the tunnel, ignites a torch in Vanille's hands. "I knew there were torches along the corridor. They're not so easy to find in the dark." Vanille walks back toward the group until they all stand in the small circle of light.

Lightning takes a look around at everyone. They all look like hell. They're bruised, battered, bloodied and dusty. Hope comes to stand between Snow and Lightning. Lightning runs her fingers through his hair, over his shoulders looking for any sign of injury. He blushes and stammers out that he's fine. Lightning ignores him and continues to check until she's satisfied that he's telling the truth.

"Alright, so now what?" Lightning says. A loud boom punctuates her question, causes everyone to tense and look around. Hope steps away from Lightning, looks up at the stalactite coated ceiling. A tense, silent minute passes uneventfully and they all sigh and relax.

The loud crack from directly above them shouldn't be a surprise and yet, somehow still is. Lightning looks up, sees the cracks forming across the ceiling, around the hanging rocks as if in slow motion. The giant stalactite above her rattles loose and heads straight for her.

"Look out!" Snow yells as something hits her from the side, sends her flying. The jagged rock catches her a glancing blow, carves a gouge down her back as she moves. She yells, hits the ground as half the ceiling lands on her left ankle. The crush is so painful she can barely feel it, the shock is so immediate. She grabs her leg below the knee and pulls. Rock rains down on and around her as she tries to pull her foot from under the growing weight. She looks up, catches a brief flash of platinum and yellow through the raining debris.

Realizes that Snow and Hope are on the other side of the cave in. No. Under the cave in.

"NO!" She shouts, thrashes to get free of her stony prison. The rocks keep falling, pressing harder on her numb, shattered limb.

The floor buckles under the growing weight, loosens its hold on her foot. She reaches her arms toward the falling rocks, yells for Snow and Hope as they disappear from view behind the growing rock wall. Strong hands curl around her ribs, tug her away from the danger.

Away from Snow and Hope.

"No," she shrieks. "Snow! Hope!" She pries at the fingers around her, fights them until fingers become a whole arm cutting off air. "We have to help them! Let go!"

The ceiling is still falling on them. The world is ending. The torchlight is gone now, and there's nothing but the feeling of an arm around her ribs pulling her backward and the dirt, earth and rocks filling the void space they occupy.

Burying them alive.

Lightning thrashes until something hard and heavy whacks her on the head, then there's nothing at all.

* * *

TBC...

Alright, there it is. This one was tough to write and I'm afraid I'm hitting a block. I'm just going to work to punch through it. I'm working on the next TWO chapters. At once. I'll have one up ASAP. Real life has been a bitch lately. Work is crazy busy. I'm so looking forward to a three day weekend. (I wanted to hold this one until the next three chapters were written so not to leave you with another cliff hanger.) I apologize.

Let me know what you think. I love hearing from you.


	14. The Twilight Kingdom

Hey! Sorry for the extra LONG delay. This chapter was very difficult to write. Thank you for the encouragement and the excellent suggestions about getting un-stuck. I did actually read through the whole story again. I found A LOT of places where this site decided to edit out actual writing (not just borders, etc)-but whole thoughts! It's really great going through all the trouble of editing documents in the Edit/Preview area and then finding that the site alters your work. I was thrilled!

Anyway, here we go.

* * *

-The Twilight Kingdom-

_She's always been afraid of the dark and now it's all that's left to her; pain, the dark and the fear of all those nasties that lurk within it. She gropes around, moves hand over hand along the walls to get her bearings. She has no memory of the textures of this room. She's blind in a strange place. Anxiety chokes her. There is a sharp pressure building behind her eyes and between her temples; half of her wishes that her head would burst just to alleviate it and put her out of her misery. She gropes at her face. Her fingers come away sticky. She pats at her cheeks, moves up until she finds the source of the pain. The source of the blood. She traces her fingers over her eyelashes, then up over her eyelids. _

_Over hollow, empty eye sockets!_

_The pain at the contact is nothing compared to the agony of memory. She wails as it assails her. The accusations. 'Witch,' they'd called her, and tore her baby from her arms. She was deemed a 'Demon and deceiver' by the clerics. For her visions. Visions she's had for so long she can't remember what life was like before them. Visions she's had since the day the gods touched her. _

_Cursed her, damn them!_

_She sobs once and winces at the zing of pain through her ribs. Her whole body aches from the beating she'd received at the hands of her 'jailors.' They'd hit her with feet and fists until she wept and begged, dragged her before the elders who'd proclaimed her to be a 'Seer and a Witch' and had burned her eyes from her head with a fired iron. _

_The pain had nearly rendered her unconscious (Apparently, she hadn't even deserved that reprieve) but it's the smell that haunts her even now._

_A door slams and she jumps, presses her back to the corner. She hears footsteps but sees nothing from her ruined eyes. Hands grab her at each elbow, drag her from the corner and she screams. One of her captors punches her in the jaw. She staggers and trips over the hem of her skirt, hangs in their grasp until she can get her feet beneath her again. Their grips are bruising, crushing as they haul her outside. _

_She feels the warmth of the midday sun beat down on her. She hears the murmur of the crowd turn to a roar. Something hits her in her temple, drips down her face. Her head and ears ring from the blow; ring with the curses and epithets the crowd hurls at her. _

_The two men pull her forward, this time more slowly. Giving everyone time to abuse the 'witch.' She wonders if her family is in the crowd. Wonders if they've murdered them for 'cavorting' with a witch. If they've murdered her infant son for being demon spawn. She can't bear to think of it, hopes that she'll die without ever knowing if her nightmares are real. _

_They reach the end of their walk and the first step hits her hard in the shin, almost sends her sprawling. Those clutching her arms don't care. If she doesn't walk, she'll be dragged. She steps up, and again. Again. She reaches the top without further injury. She wishes she could see, get one last look at her home. She turns her face skyward, wishes she could see Cocoon above. Hears the whispers again. Promises. Quid pro quo. So easy, just one little word and she'll have satisfaction if she just gives in..._

_She's pressed back to a post, hands bound behind her. She takes a deep breath of cool air as they light the pyre around her. She smells the burning wood, the burning linen of her dress. Remembers the horrible smell of her flesh burning. Yellow red glowing metal pressing to her eyes the last sight she'll ever see. She tenses as the heat sears her skin, licks at her legs and she yells out 'yes.' Croaks it, growls it. She feels tearing, hears popping noises from without and within. She opens her mouth for one final scream and..._

_...The crowd screams instead._

* * *

It takes a full minute before Lightning realizes that she's conscious again. The usually sharp boundary between nightmare and reality is virtually gone. Her whole body burns and she can't help the residual and primal fear firing through her from her ghastly dream. Her heart beats out a rapid staccato in her chest and throat. She opens her eyes, sees only black and has a horrifying moment of déjà vu for her dream. She gasps to scream, finds the weight pressing on her too great to get enough breath. The sense of suffocation ramps up her panic. She thrashes, finds that she's pinned completely immobile. The darkness only increases her disorientation and confusion. It takes a few more heartbeats for her memory to catch up to reality. When it does, Lightning wonders if she wouldn't be better off back in her dreams again.

She can't move because she has been buried alive beneath an avalanche of rock and dirt. No, not she. They have been buried. Her heartbeat and breathing accelerate. Her head spins, sparks out bright explosions of colors in the darkness. She feels consciousness slipping from her and she works to slow her breathing. She knows that hyperventilating might render her unconscious. If she loses consciousness now, there's a good chance she'll never wake up. She toys with that idea for a heartbeat, wonders if that is such a bad thing after all.

She smashes the thought, balls it up and tosses it the way of all refuse. She can't afford to indulge such depression. Not as long as there are others counting on her. Not as long as her word and honor still matter to her. (At her current rate of deterioration, she figures that concern will expire sometime tomorrow.) She shakes her head in an effort to clear it of the growing misery. Determination screwed tight, Lightning takes her time concentrating on nothing but regaining full control of her body, starting with her breathing. When she no longer feels faint, she works to free herself. She wriggles, hears rocks shift, roll and settle in the darkness. She's still pinned. "Hello?"

Something tickles and digs into her ribs, startling her. She shifts away and the pressure follows, presses into her ribs with a conscious effort. _Fingers._

"Hey," she grunts and shimmies in an effort to turn. She twists her body, feels the weight ease around her arm. She works it upwards and out of the rock pile until she can move it freely. She pushes at the debris around her neck, her collarbone. She braces her hand against the rocks around her and pushes. Inch by painful, tearing inch she forces her way out of the mound of rubble until both arms are free.

She stops, panting, painted in sweat, blood and dirt. Tears of pain pour from her eyes and track down her face to land salty and traitorous on her tongue. In accordance with her strict tenets regarding all things irritating, Lightning ignores them. She feels around her until her hand brushes against something other than rock. She hears, "WARK!" and moves faster, pats at the ground until she feels flesh. "Sazh?"

"U-u-n-mm."

"Sazh?" Shimmies around slowly, afraid of collapsing the pile and crushing her buried friends. She gets her hands around his face, feels up towards his hairline. "Sazh, can you hear me?"

"S-s-oldier?"

"That's right," she encourages, a tear falls off her nose. She's happy that she can't track its path in the darkness. She lets go of him, uses her hands to push herself up until her hips are out of the rubble, twists her body and carefully digs around Sazh's head. "Stay with me now."

"Where'm...I.," he lets out a wet cough (spraying who-knows-what all over her face), "gon-na go?" He's fading. He's going to die before she can dig him out of here. She feels her heartbeat ramp up at the thought and grunts. She can't afford panic! She needs to keep herself together! She decides to put all this lovely adrenaline to good use. She places her hands on his face again (ignores the clammy iciness indicative of shock) and calls up her strongest healing spell. Her head spins and her stomach flips but Sazh moves his head in her grasp with renewed energy. When he asks her, "you alright?" his voice is stronger.

"Fine," she answers. It's a total lie and they both know it.

"Yeah," he groans. The rock pile shifts beneath her as he moves. "Sure ya are!" She

"I'm better than you anyway." She digs around him until she feels his shirt, shoves her hands under him to pull his torso from the rubble. He groans. She slows her movements, afraid of sending bone into soft tissue.

"No arguments there." She runs her hands over his ribs looking for breaks. Sazh hisses and moans. She pours even more healing magic into him. The effort costs her, makes her queasy and shaky, but she's terrified that Sazh is going to die in the dark under her hands. Die and leave her alone in this pitch black tomb. He sighs in relief at the healing, at the reprieve from the pain. "Thanks." He starts working at the rubble around him, worming and wriggling to free himself from the pile. "We gotta get the hell out of here."

"Sounds like a plan." She pulls, pushes, shimmies-tries to get her legs out of the pile. She's panting by the time she gets her right leg free and screams when she moves the left. There is a pulling-tearing-pulsating agony sweeping from her foot to her thigh. Fresh sweat breaks out on her lip and forehead. Her head gets light, starts spinning hard revolutions that drag her stomach into the mix. She shivers, suddenly freezing despite the oppressively close air of the cavern.

"Woah, hey!" Sazh catches her around her hips, stilling her struggles. "Don't move." There's a sound of more rocks shifting. "We need some light in here. This is ridiculous."

"We can't risk fire." Her voice wobbles from the incessant chattering of her teeth. Lightning breathes deep in an effort to control the pain radiating up her leg, quash the nausea. It's not working. If anything, she's at risk of hyperventilating again. "We don't know if there are gasses trapped. Or if we have any fresh air coming in at all. Fire will use up all our oxygen."

She hears Sazh shuffling, sending rocks skittering away as he moves around her. Somehow he's managed to extricate himself from the pile of rubble. She's confused by, but thrilled at, the development.

"And thank you so much for the whole new nightmare," he comments. She feels his hand graze her left hip as he shovels the rocks away from her leg. "You really are a ray of sunshine, aren't you?"

"Sorry," she gasps, swallows down whatever crept up her esophagus into the back of her throat. It burns the whole way down. She really doesn't mean to be so depressing all the time. She's been too serious for too long, taking care of her sister and herself in the wake of her parents' deaths. She's pretty sure that she has no idea how to lighten up anymore. The only one who has ever managed to make her lay down some of her burden is...

"Oh, don't apologize, soldier. I like your gloom and doom," Sazh jokes. "It keeps things real for me."

The words touch a nerve with her. _/Don't apologize. That just makes it worse./_ Horror washes over her like an ice cold tidal wave as memory pours in.

_[Strong fingers pressed into her arm. Soft hair beneath her hands. Cracking overhead. Silt raining down, a heart stopping precursor to the main event. Two tons of rock tearing from its ancient home to crush her like a bug. A hard hit from the side, saving her from a quick and messy death.] _

Her heart stutters and drops into her stomach, forcing all the current contents of her stomach out her mouth in one acidic burst. She shakes so hard she grabs onto her ribs to keep from flying apart. Snow! Hope! They had been on the other side of the cave in when it happened. The last she'd seen them, they were both standing directly under the collapse. Her mind whites out, her body goes numb and she moves without conscious effort. Sazh is yelling at her but she can't hear his words over the blood pounding in her ears and the wailing in her head. Her whole focus is on finding Snow and Hope. They can't be gone! She won't accept it. She won't allow it!

Arms close around her and drag her backwards. She's free of the rock pile but she can't break the hold on her. She bucks, screams, sobs and screams again, frustration over her impotence overwhelming her, spilling boiling tears from her clenched eyelids. She flexes every muscle in her body in an effort to escape Sazh's iron grasp. Sazh is speaking into her ear, a soft and urgent litany of 'relaxes,' and 'we'll find them, Soldiers.'

She's dizzy by the time she stops struggling. All her energy disappears and she wishes she could disappear with it. She folds into herself but Sazh holds her up. He lifts her off her injured leg and carries her down the pile and away from the plugged up tunnel. Lightning shakes from a potent cocktail of pain, misery, guilt and fury. The perfect darkness only forces her deeper into her own mind where she watches earth and rock rain down on Snow and Hope over and over again. She'd been so close to them. They were right beside her when the ceiling started caving in.

Now they are forever out of reach.

She sobs once, hard enough to re-fracture her freshly healed ribs. Sazh's fingers tighten as he trudges forward. She thinks he may have whispered something soothing but she's not sure. She stifles the next sob, pinches the bridge of her nose hard enough to hurt. She digs the fingers of her left hand into her left knee, sending sparks of agony firing through her injured leg. She needs the pain. The physical pain distracts her from her misery, gives her something else to focus on. If she thinks right now, she'll shatter into a million pieces.

A small scratching sound to their left brings them up short. They both hold their breath, unsure if they've located friend or foe in the darkness. Lightning can feel Sazh's heart pounding as his muscles tense in fear and anticipation. Her hand rests on her weapon, ready to draw and fire if necessary. A very human grunt and moan startles them from immobility. She points and says "there," before her brain can engage and advise her that they are both blind, rendering her pointing useless. She shakes her head at her own stupidity. "Put me down, Sazh. We'll have to feel our way to be sure we don't step on whoever that is."

"That's Vanille," Sazh says with a confidence born from long weeks of companionship. Vanille, she realizes, is Sazh's Hope. The time that she had spent wandering with and caring for Hope, he had spent with Vanille. She can hear the concern in his voice, feel it in the tension thrumming through him. She's not sure why the thought had never before occurred to her. Self absorption comes to mind, and she can't help but feel shamed by the thought. She's spent so much time focused on herself and her pain, that she's forgotten to consider her friends' feelings. They deserve better from her.

Sazh puts her down on the ground as she requested. He walks and she crawls, her injured leg dragging behind her like dead weight. They both move slowly, meticulously picking over the debris. Sharp stones bruise and scratch Lightning's palms and knees as she crawls. A few minutes of careful searching and Lightning finds a leg, pats her way up until she brushes Vanille's brand. Her own flares to life with an urgency that sucks the air from her lungs and nearly throws her across the corridor. She snatches her hand back and cradles it against her. Vanille groans louder and Lightning's whole body tingles and prickles in the aftermath of the contact.

"I've got her." She pretends that her voice didn't just break. Sazh is kind enough to keep silent about it, allowing her to hold fast to her fantasy of composure. She hears Sazh approach, senses him when he kneels next to Vanille. She moves up further until she finds Vanille's head. Her fingers catch in the girl's hair as she feels around her head for any signs of obvious trauma. She doesn't feel any large lumps or any tackiness indicating bleeding. She brushes grit away from the girl's skin. Vanille is lucky not to be buried under the rocks as she and Sazh had been. It seems as if she had been far enough away from the point of the collapse not to be swept under any large debris. They'd never have found her in this darkness if she'd been buried. Her thoughts drift backwards to where two friends _/family/_ lay buried. She bites down on her lip until she tastes blood and refocuses her attention on Vanille. Lightning shifts, stretches her throbbing leg and sits. She shimmies closer to Vanille and bumps into another body.

Fang.

"Hey, I've got Fang too." She feels until she finds the woman's throat, checks for a pulse. Feels a weak but rapid thud-thud-thud under her fingers. Fang's alive but in distress.

"She alive?" Sazh sounds as if he doesn't want to know the answer.

"Yes." Lightning feels some of the tension thrumming through her abate.

Sazh sighs so hard that his breath ghosts over Lightning's face, stirs her hair. "Well, that's something at least."

Fang and Vanille are both alive. She and Sazh are both conscious if injured. It is a miracle considering half the ceiling collapsed right on top of them. She wonders if Hope and Snow might have been so lucky.

Lightning's gut clenches and she doubles over, curls tight around herself. She can't deal with this now. She has to put Snow and Hope out of her mind. There are three people here that she needs to help before she worries about those beyond her reach. She needs to focus on a solvable problem or she'll give in to her desire to curl up on the floor and wait for death. Tempting as that option may be.

"What do we do?" Sazh asks, yanking her from her thoughts. What do we do? He poses an excellent and logical question. The problem is, she has no idea. Her mind is a total blank. Every train of thought she follows ends at a dead end named **SnowandHope**. She just can't focus. She wipes her hand across her blind eyes, rubs at her forehead. "Soldier?"

_/I've been following you since the day we met, haven't I? You haven't steered me wrong yet./ _

_Haven't I?_ Guilt cripples her with its intensity. _Look at this mess!_

"Hey, Soldier!" Sazh's tone is sharp and loud, snapping her from her funk. "I need you to focus now. **We** need you to focus."

"R-right. I know." She can't concentrate. There are too many warring feelings and thoughts rattling around inside her head and heart now. No matter how hard she tries, she can't expel the nauseous worry for Snow and Hope. She pushes it aside, throws it away and it just comes flying back at her. Like Hope's Airwing. _Snap out of it. You aren't helping anyone this way! _She shakes her head roughly, exacerbating the obnoxious tension headache pounding in her ears and behind her eyes. She needs to focus on solvable problems, one at a time. She can't help Snow or Hope unless she helps herself. First order of business is to find a way out of here. She looks around before remembering that she can't see anything. Frustration heats her face and muddles her thoughts even further. "We need to move. This area is too unstable. The rest of the ceiling could cave in any minute now."

Obvious and unhelpful, but at least she's actively contributing rather than imploding.

"I don't know how we're going to get them out of here." From his tone, she can tell Sazh agrees with her assessment of obvious and unhelpful. He's too kind (or exhausted, or some combination of the two) to point it out. "I can't carry all three of you."

"I'm fine," Lightning parrots before she realizes the stupidity of the statement. Her left foot is basically crushed. The pain from the appendage is constant, radiating and near overwhelming; she can feel the blood pooling in her boot. There's a very good chance that her boot is all that's holding her foot together. She's seen crush injuries before and they are always horrific. Past experience has taught her that the damage to the structure of the limb or appendage causes a buildup of fluids or blood, increasing pressure that damages or destroys soft tissue and nerves. Even odds that the damaged appendage will require amputation, especially in a battlefield situation where treatment is delayed. What's sad is that amputation is her best bet right now. The complications from the injury can kill her in a slow and incredibly painful way.

She is very much NOT fine.

"I take that back," she says before Sazh can dispute her. "We need to wake them up. Do you have any supplies on you at all? Anything you carried in your pockets?"

"Huh? Um. Just an elixir. Maybe you should..." An elixir huh? She has no idea if it will help her; odds are, it will knock her out. If sleep offered even the slightest reprieve, she might be tempted. As it is, sleep is more disturbing than reality and she'd rather avoid it altogether. She won't take it. It might help the others. She gropes at her thigh for her own pouch, comes up empty.

"No. Save it for Vanille or Fang. I'll be okay." She ignores her blatant and terrible lie. "Alright. We need to see how badly they're injured before we move them. So, we need to see."

"I thought you said there might be gasses." Sazh sounds like he's second guessing himself for being foolish enough to ask for her input. She's not sure. Trying to read someone without the benefit of sight is more difficult than she'd have ever imagined.

"I did." She doesn't think so, but she doesn't trust her own senses enough to say she's sure. She's so out of whack that she might very well **be** **on fire** right now without even noticing. "There may be trapped gas in here. Then again, maybe not. I think light has to be a priority right now, but I don't want to make the call alone. So, what do you think?" She won't make this decision alone. She's in no condition to make any sort of command decision. She wishes someone would take the reins from her and let her wallow. She just can't formulate a coherent thought.

"I think...screw it. Let's just do it," Sazh declares. "We may all be dying anyway, right? A good explosion might be just the thing. It's a hell of a lot faster than suffocation, dehydration or starvation, right?"

Lightning's mouth twists into a sardonic smile. Good to know she's not the only one feeling fatalistic. "And you called me a ray of sunshine."

"Yeah, well, I guess you're rubbing off on me." She nods, forgetting for a moment that he can't see her.

"That seems to be a general theme here." Lightning pulls her weapon, tears off a piece of her cloak and wraps it around the blade in a makeshift torch. She swallows and says, "Ready?" Pauses to give Sazh a chance to take it back. "Here goes nothing." She calls up the fire spell and lights the material on her blade.

They don't explode which is, considering their atrocious luck, surprising. They do, however, get a chance to wish they had exploded. Or, at the very least, had remained in the dark. The devastation is worse than she could have imagined (and she's got a pretty vivid imagination these days). The cave is collapsed behind them toward the entrance, rocks piled around the stalactite that almost killed her, forming a jagged plug. There are rocks spattered with blood sloping away from the cave in. Lightning can see the blood from her leg speckling the surface of one indent in the rock pile and a fanning halo of blood around where she figures Sazh's head had been. She looks away from the horror scene behind her towards their only possible point of escape. It looks open, but the measly ring of firelight only illuminates the immediate area. She won't know that it's open for sure until she gets there. She glances around and spots the extinguished torch near Vanille's outstretched hand. "Grab that." She points at the torch.

Sazh obliges her, holding the torch up for her to light. She tears the cloth from her weapon and extinguishes it, checks her blade for damage. Smiles at the still pristine blade. _At least something around here lives up to its promises. _She touches a thumb to the blade, spends a whimsical moment admiring its craftsmanship before holstering her weapon and directing her attention to important matters.

The torch illuminates a bit more of the cave. She stares into the dark maw ahead of her searching for any sign of obstruction. There's no reflection; nothing but pitch darkness, and Lightning feels a small flicker of traitorous hope burn within that they might just escape this tomb after all. She hadn't dared to believe it. She glances back at her companions and Lightning gets her first look at Sazh. Her eyes catch on the fresh scar running from the crown of his head to his jaw, caked with congealed blood. The bruise around it is a bare shadow against his otherwise unblemished skin. "How's the head?" she asks. His hand flies up to trace the scar. He winces a bit at the tenderness.

"It's better, thanks to you."

"Don't thank me yet." Lightning mumbles as she turns her attention back to Fang. She's as white as chalk, which only makes the bruise along the side of her face more vivid. There's a splatter of blood on the cave wall near her head marking the point of impact. Lightning winces and checks her pulse again, notices it's still too fast and too weak. Getting weaker as she counts it out. There's a near black bruising across her torso, getting darker all the time. Possible internal bleeding. If that's the case, Fang is going to die if they can't figure something out. Lightning looks at the slowly rousing Vanille, decides she's useless to them for healing right now. She'll be lucky if she can heal herself. Lightning tries to muster her strength to call up a healing spell. All she gets for her effort is woozy. Lightning draws her hand away, lays her hand on Fang's arm. On her brand.

It's like an electrical charge travelling up her hand, through her arm and to her chest. It sucks the breath from her lungs, sets her whole body aflame. She pulls her hand back and checks for blisters. The skin of her palm is unblemished. She glances at Fang, notices that the bruise on her face looks lighter and greener, rather than the vivid blue-black-purples of fresh bruising.

_What the...? _She looks down at her arm, at the gouge she'd gotten before they'd entered Mah'Habara to find it closed. The skin looks discolored in the torchlight, dingy and gray, but the painful wound is sealed and her arm is whole again. She looks over at Sazh, his attention firmly locked on a semi-conscious Vanille. He's speaking softly to her, trying to bring her back to consciousness, patiently waiting with a potion or elixir for when she's ready. The girl is grumbling but waking. All in all she's doing okay. Lightning puts Vanille from her mind and focuses on the newly discovered bit of l'Cie magical nonsense. She looks back at Fang and wonders if she's lost the final shred of her sanity.

The strange bolts of crippling energy, like she's laid hands on a live wire, firing through her body at the slightest hint of contact with their brands. The burning intensity radiating from her own brand in return. She's not sure what it means, but she's desperate enough to test her half baked, half formed hypothesis.

"Sazh," she whispers. "Can you come here for a minute?" He looks up at her with a tilted head. Something in her eyes puts him on edge, makes him wary. She can almost see the wheels spinning in his head. "I'd like to try something."

"What's up, Soldier?" He asks. Unsure but not unwilling.

"Do you trust me?" The question seems to put him even more on edge. She half expects him to grab Vanille and run away.

"Sure I do," he declares, though she can see he's still undecided. She doesn't blame him. She's not sure she trusts herself either. "What do you need?"

"Show me your brand," she says, and he gets even more uncomfortable. He shifts a bit before obliging her, opening his collar for her perusal. She moves before he can react, places the fingers of her left hand over his brand. His eyes widen as her whole body ignites again, and she sees a quick flash of blue white fire in his eyes before she pulls her hand back. The entire contact was less than two seconds. The scar that had been on his face only minutes before is gone.

Her head spins.

"What the hell was that?" he yells, panting.

"Did I hurt you?" She blinks rapidly in an effort to focus her eyes again.

"Yes!" He shouts. "No," he reconsiders. "I don't know. But don't do that again!" He shifts, looks down at Vanille, then looks back up at Lightning. "What the hell was that anyway?"

"I don't know," she admits. "Magic?" He gives her a disbelieving look and she just shrugs. She has no idea what this development means. She's been getting progressively less shrewd as time passes. Right now she feels one step above brain dead between the exhaustion, injuries, and constant stress. Part of her secretly wishes she had just taken that last step. "But your scar is gone."

"What?" His hand flies to his face again, presses fingers along his hairline and now vanished scar. "I don't get it. You wanna clue me in."

There are few things she'd like more than to offer an explanation. All she has is a half baked, vaguely formed theory. No, not even a theory. A notion. "Wish I could. It was just a thought."

"A thought?" He parrots. "Touching my brand, lighting me up like a bonfire and somehow healing...everything, was just an idle thought?" His lip curls.

"Sort of," she mumbles. Her mind is someplace else as she stares at Fang's spreading bruise. "But I think that it might work." She's not making sense. She knows she isn't, but her brain is moving too fast for her mouth. Wheels are spinning and she thinks...

"I'm not following you, Soldier."

She heaves a sigh, tries to figure out how to say something that hasn't formed into a cohesive thought. She pulls at the threads of her tattered thoughts, tries to gather them up like scraps before giving up the task as fruitless. She doesn't have time for explanations anyway! She grunts and says, "forget it." Decided on a course despite the total lack of information, she reaches out her right hand, grabs Fang's arm and touches Sazh's chest in one move. The power passes through her like a circuit, rips across the pathways of her nerves and veins. Had she the ability to think, she would worry her blood might boil from the sheer power. It feels like days, but in seconds Fang rockets upwards shattering the connection.

Lightning doesn't even realize that she can't see until the world filters back in. She blinks as she does a quick inventory of her mind and body, hoping to determine if she's sustained any noticeable permanent damage. Everything feels intact if a bit numb. When comprehension returns she finds that she's sprawled on her back staring at a large crack in the ceiling. She traces its path back towards the pile of collapsed rock before Fang's face blocks the view. "You alright then?" Fingernails dig into her arm as the other woman drags her upright. The change of orientation gives new meaning to the term light headed. "Wanna explain what the hell you just did?"

"Don't know." She blinks until her eyes focus and catch on the yellow green shadow of a bruise along Fang's face. "But it worked."

"Yeah sure, it worked. That's just great." Lightning's not sure why Fang is so pissed until the other woman presses a cloth against her nose. Fang grabs Lightning's right hand and puts it over the cloth. "Hold that there. You're bleeding like mad. We don't know what the hell you did, or what sort of damage you might have done and all you have to say about it is 'it worked.' Drinks all around then, right?"

Lightning is too tired to deal with angry sarcasm. "You were dying." She's not sure how she knows that, but as soon as the words come out of Lightning's mouth, she knows they are absolute truth. "Bleeding inside, I think." Fang doesn't subside at this news.

"Yeah, it's not that I'm ungrateful," Fang says, pulling Lightning to her feet. "It's just that you're playing with forces you don't understand. And I thought that we agreed you'd start taking better care of yourself."

She's at a loss. Truly. Did Fang expect her to let her die? "I really didn't..." Lightning trails off. She's not going to apologize for saving Fang's life. The thought of it is preposterous, and she's once again too slow and exhausted to work up any righteous indignation at the notion. She just can't be bothered anymore. "Whatever."

It takes a few seconds of Lightning standing before she remembers her crushed foot. She looks down, past the reddening cloth in her hand to her (previously) injured foot. There's a strange shadowing on her leg above her boot and a squishing from the blood that has pooled and congealed inside her boot, but otherwise it feels normal. No pain, no tingling. _Huh. That's a happy side effect._

She looks back up and Sazh, Vanille and Fang are all staring at her with wide eyes. "What?" They don't answer, just exchange uncomfortable glances with one another. "What?" She repeats.

"Nothing," Sazh says, but he looks terrified. Vanille won't meet her eyes. She is too fascinated with stuffing all salvageable provisions and items into her recovered pack. Fang looks at Vanille and Sazh and harrumphs before turning her attention back to Lightning.

Stuck with the dirty job again it seems.

"Yeah, forget about them. Let's get out of here before this cave decides to finish what it started." Fang hands Sazh the torch and grabs Lightning by her arm.

Lightning allows the subject change and almost lets herself be dragged away from the collapsed ceiling. Truth be told, she'd like nothing more than to escape from this makeshift tomb. The atmosphere is getting hotter and stuffier with each passing minute, and getting a full breath of air is becoming a chore. She takes one step, glances backwards _/Snow and Hope/_ and she digs her heels in. "Wait! What about Snow and Hope?"

Fang sighs and nods at her, obviously expecting the question. "I know. But we can't help them right now." She tugs on Lightning's arm again, hoping to nudge her onward. Lightning yanks her arm back from Fang so violently that blood wells from furrows left by the other woman's fingernails.

She pulls the bloody rag away from her nose. "That's unacceptable!" Blood pours over her lips, into her mouth and over her chin before streaming onto the floor. Fang grabs the rag from Lightning and presses it back against her nose, presses her against the wall of the cavern and crowds her in. A hard forearm against her collarbone and a full and intimate press of Fang's body against her own pins her immobile. The move is so sudden and unexpected that Lightning forgets to be angry at the manhandling.

"Okay, listen to me carefully," Fang whispers soft and even, right in Lightning's ear. Her tone is piteous with a hint of menace and raises goose bumps on Lightning's whole body. "I want to find the kid and the Hero too. But we. Can't. Help them. Right now. Got it?" Fang pauses to lift Lightning's hand to the cloth again. The pressure against her clavicle doesn't relent. "The ceiling collapsed." As if Lightning hadn't noticed that... "It looks like the floor did too. Odds are, Snow and Hope are no longer on the other side of that collapse. If they lived-and knowing that stubborn Hero and his complete unwillingness to disappoint you, I'm sure they did-they're somewhere below us. You can't dig through that pile of rock without dumping the rest of the ceiling down on your head. Maybe theirs too. And you're not going to do them any good staying here and getting yourself killed. You wanna find them? You come with us. Now."

Fang lets her go and steps away in one smooth move, tensing up for the hit she's sure is coming. The hit she knows she deserves for that little stunt. Lightning surprises her (and herself) by standing stock still and considers the merit of the other woman's words. Lightning lets her head fall backwards until it cracks against the stone wall behind her _(ow!)_, doing everything in her power to force herself to accept Fang's words as truth. All of them.

Especially the part about Snow being too stubborn to die. Even if it's only to make sure he doesn't disappoint her. She'll embrace her selfishness just this once if it means they'll both still be alive.

The alternative is unthinkable.

"So you think they're below us?" She lets her hope germinate. It's all she has left.

"I think that's the only possible scenario where they are both alive, yeah." _And if they aren't alive, it doesn't matter anyway_. Fang doesn't say it, but it's written all over her.

"And if I go with you now, you won't get in my way." _I'll kill you if you do. Don't test me. _She leaves the threat as an unspoken implication.

"I'll do you one better. I'll help you find them." Lightning studies Fang for any trace of subterfuge. She decides that either Fang is one of the best liars she's ever seen, or she's telling the truth. The cynic in her believes the former. The rest of her- that loves Snow and Hope beyond all reason-has no choice but to believe the latter.

"Alright," she concedes. "We'll play it your way." She casts one more glance at the cave in /I-swear-I-promise-I'll-find-you/ before turning away. "Let's go."

* * *

TBC... (and much sooner, I promise. It appears as if two chapters turned into four!)

So, the reasons this chapter was so hard to write-Complete absense of visual stimulation. It turns out, that's pretty tricky. I actually wandered around with a BLINDFOLD with my eyes shut tight to try to get an idea of just how scary it is to be in total darkness. Because even when it's dark-there's still some light somewhere. The LED displays, the moon, the stars, streetlights, floodlights from the park near my house. Wait long enough and you'll get some sort of outline. But not in absolute cave darkness. Try it sometime. Find a room with no windows, close the door, stuff the cracks (or wait until dark) and sit there. Nothing...I promise.

So anyway, I almost fell down the stairs in that little experiment. Still, it made it a bit easier to describe things without vision. (I'm nothing if not dedicated. Oh, and INSANE. I'm that too!)


	15. Interlude II: The Saga of Snow and Hope

Thanks to all my reviewers. I wanted to get this Chapter up in time for Grimmjuchas birthday (which I believe is today!). Happy Birthday and be safe.

I was actually going to make this a separate story (offshoot) as this chapter changes the general narrator. But, in the end, I think it works.

* * *

"Fear is the mother of mortality."  
-Frederich Nietzsche

Interlude II: The Saga of Snow and Hope  
Part I

It's so dark, he's not even sure if his eyes are open. Or if he's really awake. Or why he'd been sleeping in the first place. Or why he would fall asleep in such an uncomfortable position, in such a hot place.

His whole body tingles and burns. There are needles of fire stabbing him, and parts of him that are so numb he's not sure they are still attached. He tries to shift and only manages to make things worse. There is a crushing pressure on his chest that only gets heavier as he moves. He can't stifle his reaction. He panics. Thrashes. His head immediately lets him know that moving is a terrible idea by delivering a sharp stab of pain through his right eye. He stops moving and the stabbing pain resolves itself into a sharp thud, thud, thud in time with his racing heartbeat. It feels like someone has cracked his skull like an egg and poured boiling water over his brain in some weird reversal of poaching. (The thought of food makes him ill rather than hungry for the first time in his life.) He breathes, hoping air will help. He gets a lungful of hot air and dirt, chokes and gets a sharp rattle in his chest for his trouble.

"Oh," he groans. Everything hurts. His ears are stuffed and ringing. There's a metallic grit coating his mouth that tastes awful. He tries swallowing, can't get enough saliva to accomplish the task. It's like someone lodged a golf ball in his throat and he just can't bring it up or down. He opens his mouth, tries working his tongue to get some moisture in his mouth and ends up with a mouthful of hair.

Hair?

He spits, tries to pull his hand up to pull the hair out his mouth, out from the back of his throat alongside his tonsils where it lodged itself when he swallowed. He can't get his arms free of whatever weight pins them down. He gags and spits, still feels the hair stuck to his tongue, his tonsil and the roof of his mouth. How the hell did he get hair in his mouth? It can't be his hair. Can it? He has always kept his hair too short to reach his mouth. His mom would never let him grow it, no matter how much he'd begged. So, if it's not his, then whose? Who is with him? What the hell happened to him?

"Light?" He croaks. "Help me!" Light will help him. She always helps him. But she doesn't answer his plea. Instead, the weight on top of him shifts and groans, deep and pained followed by a whistling sigh. Alright, so he's confirmed that there is a person on top of him. It's good to know that much. He just wishes he could remember how he'd gotten here...wherever the hell 'here' is.

Bits and pieces of memories flash through his mind like snapshots in a photo album.

The dark out on the Steppe. The fear at the sight of the sleeping Adamantoises. Lightning's hand clamped around his wrist, pale fingers shaking and clinging to him, translating her fear to him. Snow hoisting him over his shoulder and running, sharp knob of bone bruising his ribcage. Each step jarring him, driving the air from his lungs and Snow's shoulder deeper into his gut.

Lightning standing with fire racing down her blade, poised to strike some unseen charging threat. Stomach souring with fear. Snow charging back out into the dangerous dark to get her. Fang grabbing his arm, sharp fingernails pricking into the soft skin of his forearm as she drags him away from the tunnel entrance. Running through the pitch black cavern, terrified of what might await them in the darkness. Standing and panting in the darkness, searching for a shadow of an outline of **anything** at all, and coming up blank. Vanille, radiant in the glorious glowing torch light.

Lightning's sad, relieved smile morphing into panic. Fear.

The earth quaking beneath their feet.

Spider webs of cracks streaking across the ceiling.

Snow grabbing him, folding over him to shield him from the raining rocks. The floor moving beneath their feet, breaking apart like the ice on Lake Bresha during a spring thaw. Falling through the darkness.

Air exploding from his lungs on brutal impact.

Then nothing. Until now.

So, it's not Lightning pressed against him, suffocating him. Lightning hadn't been near him when the collapse happened. "Snow," he croaks. The weight shifts again. Whimpers like a wounded, dying animal. "Snow, please." _Please don't die. Please get off me. Please help._ He's not even sure what he's asking anymore. He just knows that he can't breathe.

Snow responds to his plea. Maybe it's an unconscious button with him: always the hero. But right now, Hope is so very glad that Snow believes his own hype, because it's got him moving and relieving some of the pressure on Hope's chest so he can fill his lungs. He takes a deep breath and clears some of the cobwebs from his mind. (Amazing what a little oxygen can do for a body.) Another breath spurs him into action.

"Come on, Snow! Wake up." Hope shifts, tries to wriggle out from under the other man. Every move he makes only pins him further. Each time he creates some space, the relentless weight above just fills it. There's sweat pouring into Hope's eyes by the time he stops struggling. It's impossible! There is just no way that Snow is this heavy! Hope distinctly remembers Lightning dragging a near unconscious Snow through the streets of Palumpolum. He knows Light is strong, but she's not that strong! Is she? "Snow?"

"yeah, kid. I hear ya."

"You okay?" He asks absently. Snow has never been anything but okay. The man is armor plated. He takes hit after hit without flinching; if he gets knocked down, he gets right back up. He's never conceded any sort of defeat, and never admitted to weakness. Not to Hope, at least. "Snow?" He is not worried. He refuses to be worried. "Snow?" He did not squeak. Warriors don't squeak!

"No, kid. M'not okay." Fear hits Hope like a groin shot, makes him shiver faster and harder than a bucket of ice water ever could. He'd double up to protect his belly if he could move at all. "I think...something's broken. Or...I don't know. Worse."

_Worse? _Hope's teeth chatter at the cold fear sweeping over and through him. "I can fix you," he declares with absolute certainty. "You just have to let me up." Panic accelerates his speech and stalls his thoughts. He feels light headed and clumsy. His words trip over each other and his tongue on their way out of his mouth. "y-you'll b-be f-f-fine. Just m-m-move a little. Please?"

Snow moves, grunts, settles again. "Don't think I can, kid."

Hope resents the sting in his eyes. He's not going to cry! "What do you mean?" Snow has never admitted defeat. Hope's sure that he won't start now. Right?

"I think the whole ceiling is on my back. And my legs. M'not sure. I...c-can't feel much," he stops speaking to pant a bit. "cn't move." Hope spends a horrified second contemplating lying here until Snow dies on top of him. Then living on alone in the dark while Snow rots. Hope thrashes a bit more, desperate to escape.

"You're going to be fine!" Hope insists. He won't accept any other outcome. How can Snow just accept defeat? How can he give up? He can't! Not while Hope needs him. Not if Lightning might need him.

Oh no! Lightning! What happened to her? Hope can't hear her. If she's here, Hope is sure that she'd be looking for him. Calling for him. What if she's buried somewhere in this mess? What if she's hurt and needs their help? Doesn't Snow care? "We have to find Light! Snow? Do you know what happened to Lightning?"

There is a long pause. Hope's heart pounds even harder, driving railroad spikes of pain into his eye. Somehow, Snow sounds even more pained when he whispers, "I think she's dead, kid."

It's a fist to the throat; a sledgehammer to the chest. His insides feel like their twisting inside him, trying to hide behind one another to protect themselves from the next hit. He hiccoughs once, feels a tear burn its way down his face. _It hurts. Oh god, please no._ "B..but. No. She can't be..."

"I tr-tried. But the rock just... plea-please can't..." If he didn't sound so bereft, Hope would almost say that Snow is whining. "Tried. I tried to save her." Snow trails off into broken rambles that Hope can't follow. The rock?

And the memory floods in. The huge, pointed rock poised over Lightning like an axe. Snow reacting while he'd just stood there frozen in terror. Snow shoving Lightning, sending her flying and snatching him back in one move. Saving both of them. Just like he'd promised. Lightning's wide, terrified eyes through the falling debris. She's not dead. Lightning is a survivor. She's alive!

"F-failed her...you...m'sorry. So sorry, Serah." Snow trails off again, whispering broken apologies to Serah. Murmuring words of devotion. Secrets that Hope has no right hearing, wishes that he'd never heard. Snow is whispering to someone who isn't there. He's slipping away while Hope just lies here. Hope needs to do something before it's too late. He tries to move his arms again but the weight on him holds him fast; he finds that he can only extend his fingers. He stretches his fingertips, reaching, reaching. He can't get a handhold on Snow, pinned as he is. He wants to scream his frustration but is afraid of the consequences of such an action. He might draw enemy attention to them while they are trapped immobile and helpless. He might startle Snow into cardiac arrest. He might shout himself into unconsciousness. Hope contains his shouts and sneers and growls instead.

He needs to do something to spur Snow, give him a reason to fight. Snow thinks Lightning's dead, but Hope is sure she isn't. _She can't be. I would know. _"She's not dead!" Hope blurts. "You saved her Snow. Just like you promised you would." Snow exhales a hot gust of air against Hope's ear. "I saw her. She was alive. You saved her and me." He waits for a response and gets none. "Did you hear me Snow? You saved us!" Still nothing. _Someone help me! _"Now I'm going to return the favor," he mumbles.

"Kid," the word shocks Hope. He'd been pretty sure that Snow had slipped into unconsciousness. "If you can get out of here, you save yourself." He chokes on the last word. What does that mean? Snow wants him to leave him here to die? "Find the 'thers. Find Lightn'ng." Snow's words are slurring. His voice is getting quieter. Softer. He's losing consciousness.

"You're giving up?" Hope's eyes burn. "I can't believe you! Things get a little tough and you just give up. Some hero you are!" He knows it's a cheap shot, but it spurs some action. Snow grunts and moves. If he can shame Snow into fighting, he'll do it. Snow has saved his life...more times than he can count now. He's not going to just lay here and let Snow die.

He just needs to get free. There must be something he can do. It's up to him to save them. He cannot fail!

A strange and frightening thought occurs to him. He's not sure if it's possible but it seems to be the only option. He can't get free and Snow is obviously too injured to help him. Now that Hope is listening, he can hear the wet crackle in each labored breath. He can feel a shudder with each exhale. Snow's condition is critical and Hope is petrified that no matter what he does, it won't be enough.

_Stop! It's not a question of can or can't._

Hope knows what he has to do, he's just not sure how to do it. He's seen Lightning do it. And Snow. But he's never purposely called upon his Eidolon for aid. He finds the idea of summoning and controlling his Eidolon wet-your-pants terrifying (not that he'll ever admit that out loud.) Still, it's less scary than remaining trapped until he dies of dehydration. Or becomes victim to some scavenger. (Oh, he really didn't need to think about being eaten alive. There are more than enough nightmares in this scenario already. He's pretty sure he's not going to sleep for a while. Or, you know, ever again.) He does his best to forget about his fears, pushes them as far from his mind as he can. Considering the jangling in his stomach and tremors running through him, it's not that far. He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, concentrates on his need. His desperation. Begs. Pleads. He waits and nothing happens.

He commands and orders. Demands!

Alexander arrives with a roar. Hope can't see it, but can feel it as surely as he can feel his own hand, or Snow's bulky body crushing down onto him. The Eidolon's presence gives even more weight to the already oppressive air. "Help us," he squeaks. _Please let this work! _The Eidolon moves. Heavy footsteps send tremors through the ground, shake more dirt into Hope's blind, open eyes. Hope can hear the rocks moving-clack, grate, scrape-can feel the weight lessening and the air getting cooler as the blanket of dirt and rock is lifted.

Snow cries out into Hope's still ringing ear when the last of the weight is lifted from them. "Pick him up gently." Hope feels the Eidolon's giant fingers brush against him as they slip between his body and Snow's. Snow screams, a broken, ragged sound that sends more tears pouring down Hope's face. "Easy! Be careful," he shouts. "Don't hurt him!" He can barely hear himself over Snow's screaming.

Snow never screams. He yells. He grunts. He growls. He shouts. He roars.

He laughs!

Hearing him howl in agony is one of the worst sounds Hope has ever heard. It makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. So much naked pain, Hope's not sure he can fix it. He wishes Vanille were here to help him. She would know what to do. How to fix Snow. He's frightened that his clumsy attempts to heal Snow might just make it worse.

No! He can't doubt himself.

_/It's not a question of can or can't. There are some things in life you just do./_

He does his best to forget his doubts and determines that he **will** fix Snow. There is simply no alternative. Hope pushes himself up; he needs to help Snow immediately. His whole body sounds off in displeasure. Now that the pressure has been relieved, pain floods through him. Every part of his body lights up with stabbing needles and tingles from the renewed blood flow. His head spins and Hope feels as if he might pass out any minute. He lowers his head and waits it out, terrified that if he passes out now, he'll wake to find Snow dead.

If he wakes at all. They are still in enemy territory, after all.

Hope stands up blind, holds his arms out in front of himself. He can hear Snow writhing and panting somewhere in the darkness, but he can't orient himself at all. "Snow?" he calls. Waits for a response. "I can't see anything." His heart pounds in his throat. "Snow? Answer me!" He's terrified that Snow has succumbed to his injuries. _Please, no. Don't leave me alone here. _He feels the pooling moisture in his eyes spill over, slip down into his mouth, over his parched tongue.

"Still...here...kid," Snow gasps, voice little more than wet breath.

Hope will never admit just how relieved he is to hear that voice. He dashes furiously at his eyes, determined to be strong. Lightning doesn't weep! Hope has spent the better part of the past two months watching Lightning cope with one awful situation after the next. She deals with what's in front of her and forgets the rest. Determined to make her proud of him, Hope screws his courage to the sticking place, keeps his arms in front of him and steps. His ankle turns on a rock and he almost hits the ground again. He swears, loud and colorful, hears a chuckle turn into a wet cough.

"Where'd you...hear that word?" Snow asks.

"Huh?"

"Shouldn't...swear."

_What?_ Talk about 'down a rabbit hole, through the looking glass' nonsense. Hope steps more carefully this time, picking his way through the darkness. His toe bangs into a rock and sends it skittering away like a rocket. His heart pounds hard as he stops, holds his breath and listens, half expecting Snow to shout in pain from a fresh injury: this one caused by Hope hitting him with a rock! Hope exhales the breath, wishing he could get rid of his tension as easily.

"Let me see if I have this straight," Hope starts, exercising even more caution as he moves. "We just dodged dozens of stampeding monsters," he takes a breath, tries opening his eyes WIDER, "got caught in a cave in," _[no good, still blind], _"and got separated from all our friends. We're trapped in the dark, lost in some giant CAVE in the middle of a strange world, you're severely injured;" he swallows, tries to stop his voice from cracking, keep the fear out and the humor in, "and you're worried about my swearing?" Hope stops moving, waiting for Snow to comment so he can get his bearings again. The silence stretches. "Snow?"

"...when you put it that way...changed m'mind...swear away, kid." Hope drops down and reaches his hands out until he bumps something soft. The small tap elicits a hiss and grunt.

"Sorry." Hope apologizes. His heart rate kicks up, roars in his ears as it pounds on his larynx.

"S'okay."

It's not okay. Nothing about this is okay. He's not equipped to deal with this situation. He's so out of his depth, it's not even funny. He needs help. He can't take care of Snow. He can barely take care of himself!

_/It's not a question of can or can't./_

Right. Not a matter of can or can't. He's Snow's only chance. But...what if he makes this worse? He doesn't know what's wrong with Snow. He's healed bruises, cuts, swelling. Even cracked bones. But all out breaks? (If that's even what it is.) He has no idea how to fix breaks. Especially not in the dark.

_/There are some things in life you just do./_

_Stop sniveling and do it!_ "I need light," he mumbles.

"She's not here, Kid. Sorry." _Huh? Oh..._

"No, not Light. **Light**!"

"...not following you. Sis always says I'm a dumb blond." Snow coughs, sprays a fine mist across Hope's face. "guess she's right." Snow breathes in hard short bursts. A sign of pain and an attempt to control it.

"To see by. **Light** to see by," he says. Hope has never heard Lightning call Snow a dumb blond. Not even back on Cocoon when she hated him. He's afraid maybe Snow is sliding into delirium. He moves faster, reaches out until his fingers touch something. He thinks its Snow's coat, but he's not sure. The material is stiffer than he remembers. He pats, tries to figure out what body part he's touching when he brushes against something sharp and protruding that makes Snow curse and yell. Hope yanks his hand back saying, "Sorry sorry sorry-sorry-sorry." His heart pounds in his throat and his temples, beats such a terrified rhythm that he's afraid it might choke him. "Please. I'm sorry. Snow? Please." Once again he's not sure what he's asking. _Please stop wailing. Please forgive me for hurting you. Please don't die._

Snow stops yelling, but there's this high pitched, constant whine coming from him. Somehow it's even worse than the screaming. It reminds him of that gutted animal on the Archylte Steppe, yelping pathetically before Lightning put it down. Hope wants to cover his ears with his hands to block the sound out. He resists the urge, terrified that severing any connection to Snow might just send him over the edge into death.

More tears pour over tightly clenched lids. His whole face contorts downward, cheeks tugging on his bottom lip until his mouth twists into a quivering frown. His chest burns with the effort of suppressing the sobs building within. He knows that if he lets one escape him, he's going to lose it. He looks around into the darkness, stares into the abyss for anything. The complete absence of visual stimuli only adds to the helplessness. He can't. Just. Can't!

"HELP!" He shouts despite the futility. The shout lets loose the bottled sob and he just overflows. Gurgles out a soft, "Please, someone." _Lightning!_ "help us," he whispers. _Help me._

"H-hope," Snow chokes; his voice rattles and crackles. "gotta g-go. You. Go. Find Sis. Tell 'er...t'll m'srry."

"Shut up! I'm not going anywhere without you!" He blubbers, feels snot bubble out of his nose, tears burn his eyes and pour over his lashes. He wipes his nose on his sleeve, takes a deep breath through his nose, hears the wet slurp of mucus rattling before he tastes it in the back of his throat and chokes out another sob. "HELP ME!" He shouts.

The large sigh behind him scares him so badly that every hair on his body stands on end. He shivers and stuffs his fist into his mouth to stifle the yell he knows he's about to let loose. The gentle glow sparking behind him has him curling fetal, hands over his eyes.

Something touches him and he squeaks and jerks, scooting away and whipping his head up.

Alexander.

His Eidolon hadn't abandoned him in the darkness. The lumbering giant is squatting near him, holding a lit torch between its enormous thumb and index finger. Hope wipes his tears away with the back of his hand, feels his cheeks heat with embarrassment at weeping like an infant in front of this creature. This incredibly powerful creature that has yielded itself to his control.

Can it kill him if it judges him and finds him wanting?

He goes rigid and cold at the idea. Hope looks into the Eidolon's eyes, gauging its intentions. It regards him with no discernable emotion. Not anger. Not pity. It just...is.

Snow coughs and coughs, chokes and gags and coughs some more. Hope forgets the Eidolon for a moment to glance at Snow.

He freezes and stares, trying to process and understand what he's seeing. The gruesome tableau is near incomprehensible. There's so much blood, Hope can't see past it to the injuries beneath it. He looks down at himself to see smears and streaks across his clothes, speckles spattering his arms. His brain just can't process what it's seeing. Like he's looking at a painting from the wrong angle and if he just turns his head, everything will make sense again.

But there's no sense to be had here. Snow is face down on the rocky ground in a spreading pool of his own blood. There's so much on the ground that Hope wonders how much more can be inside him. The puddle is inching its way towards Hope's sneaker and he pulls his foot back without conscious thought. He looks back at Snow, shakes his head and says, "Oh god! I can't...I don't...but..."

"Kid?" _/I'm going to call you kid until you're eighty-two./_ Not likely. Snow isn't going to live for the next seven minutes, let alone seven decades. "You okay?"

_Am I okay? _The words snap Hope out of his stunned immobility. _Always the hero. Please don't die. _He crawls over to Snow, feels the pooling blood soak through the knees of his pants. He gets close to Snow's face, leans down to try to get a look in his eyes. They are glassy and drooping, pupils blown so wide that there's almost no blue visible. He reaches out but stops short inches from Snow's face, terrified to touch him. He looks down the length of Snow's back, stares at the mass of blood wetting Snow's coat and tries to figure out where to start.

Hope has now discovered the source of the hard, sharp and protruding object. There's a rock almost as thick as Hope's arm sticking out of the middle of Snow's back.

"It's ok, Hope." Snow slurs his words now so they are barely comprehensible. Hope tries to meet Snow's eyes, but the lids are slowly drooping. "Dn't wor-ry bout it. K? Just..."

"Shh. Be quiet Snow." He can't listen to Snow comfort him while he's impaled by a giant rock. He needs to think. He needs to act. Snow is going to die while he gnaws on his knuckles and gnashes his teeth. "Be quiet. I'm not going to let you die."

"my fault," Snow mumbles. Hope wishes Snow would shut up but he's afraid that if the big man stops talking, he'll never start again. So he lets him ramble and does his best to keep Snow alive.

"Nothing is your fault, Snow. You saved us." He places his hand on the back of Snow's head, hoping to offer some measure of comfort.

"Should've been me, not her." Hope shakes his head.

"Lightning isn't dead Snow." _I refuse to believe she's dead. She wouldn't just die. She promised. Snow promised. _"You saved her."

"...if she'd just let me die, you wouldn't be here. You'd be home now. No brand and no danger." _What the hell is he rambling about? _"So sorry. Your mom, she...she really was tough. She should've let me die." Hope feels like he's been gut punched again. His mom? He can't. He really can't think about her right now. He has avoided thinking about her as much as possible. Hearing Snow talk about her reignites the resentment he's tried so hard to smother.

"Snow. Just," _(SHUT UP, DON'T TALK ABOUT MY MOTHER),_ "it wasn't your fault. None of it. Please, don't" _(speak about her ever again) _"blame yourself anymore. My mom would never just let someone die. Not anymore than you would." He brushes his fingers across Snow's brow, feels the crease from the pain. "And I wouldn't want that. For you to be dead. We're...we're family now. Right?" He ignores the tears spilling down his cheeks. He lays his hand next to the protruding rock, feels Snow wince, watches blood well. "So, I'm going to fix this. You're going to be okay."

Snow lets out a laugh that's little more than breath. Blood mists around the rock, aspirating from his perforated lung. "she named you well. Hope."

Hope watches Snow's eyes droop, hears a long, whistling exhale that sounds suspiciously like "Ser-ah." Hope stares at the rock that is sticking out of Snow's back, watches blood burble around it. He has to get it out if he's going to heal him. But... what if he kills him?

_/It's not a question of can or can't./_

He clings to Lightning's words as absolute truth. Hope feels calm peace wash over him. There's no option here: he will save Snow. Snow promised to look after him, and Hope is not willing to let him out of that promise yet. So, Snow's not going anywhere. Not if Hope has anything to say about it. Hope puts his hand around the rock. He can barely close his fist around it, it's so thick. His nerves start prickling and his stomach flips.

"s'okay. do it, kid. it'll be a'right."

_/There are some things in life you just do./_

He swallows, closes his eyes, says a soft, "please," and yanks straight up with all his might. Snow lets out one loud, sharp bark. Hope hurls the rock away from him and puts both hands over the gaping hole in Snow's back. Warm blood seeps through his fingers, oozes over the tops of his hands, fills the whorls of his skin over his knuckles and the valleys between the small bones of his hands. His hands are saturated with gore to his wrists in seconds. His whole body cringes and he fights the urge to recoil. Hope presses harder trying to keep the blood inside Snow's body where it belongs. Snow doesn't make a sound and Hope starts to feel panic creep in around the edges of his forced calm. He can't hear anything but his own heartbeat, and his vision is a tunneled blur. He can't afford to take either hand off of Snow so he just closes his eyes, concentrates everything he is, everything he has, on keeping Snow's heart beating.

"Please." He whispers again. "Give me the strength to save him." _Please, please, please. _Hope feels a lightening-pulling-wrenching-warmth start at his chest and travel through him. It fills him, a radiant invisible impossible glow that coalesces around him. He gathers it to him from everywhere at once-from within and without-until it feels like it might explode from him. When the pain starts in his chest from the strain of **holding on**, he releases it all, forces it out of him and into Snow, pours it into him like a faucet. No-like a water cannon. He uses all the strength he can summon to press this incredible and brand new healing spell into Snow's nearly _(please only nearly)_ dead body.

In his mind's eye he sees the power pouring into Snow. He imagines the power as a green light filling the hole right through Snow's body; pictures it seeking out the bleeding inside, sealing off the damaged blood vessels, grasping the frayed edges of the tear in his lung and knitting them back together. Layer upon layer of tissue gathered and woven back together with as much care as his mother knitting a sweater or weaving a tapestry. He senses the blood around the lung preventing respiration and he uses the magic to siphon it away, funnel it out of the chest until he feels the lung inflate again. He turns his attention to the broken ribcage, feels it knit itself together again as the magic weaves itself in and out and around, filling the gaping maw beneath his hands.

Hope feels the power gush out of him in wave after wave. It's euphoric. It's excruciating. The pain starts at the base of his skull and tears outward and downward, but he refuses to relent on his spell. He feels Snow's heart kick against his hands with renewed strength as pain threatens to rend him limb from limb. He feels something rupture in his head, tastes something warm and metallic. He sends a final bit of power into Snow, just to prove to himself that pain will not frighten him. Ever. Again.

He ends the spell, shuts it off like a faucet. His joints unlock, turn to water and send him crashing across Snow's back as unconsciousness folds him into its cold embrace.

* * *

There's someone pounding on his temple, only it feels like they're using the claw end of a hammer. From the inside. He wants to rub it, but he can't move at all. His limbs have turned to stone, or he's been hogtied. Or something.

The sharp pounding is only getting worse the closer to consciousness he gets. He wants to go back under, but the pain isn't relenting enough to allow him that luxury. He needs to press against the sharp pain, try to thwart his brain's attempt to do a prison break from his skull. He's pretty sure he needs his brain, although considering all the trouble it's causing him, that certitude may actually be debatable.

"Uhhn." He didn't mean to say that. He wonders if it's possible that his body and brain have destroyed all diplomatic channels and have declared all out war on one another. It might explain why his brain is trying so hard to flee the confines of his skull.

"Hey, Hope? Come on. Open your eyes." There are fingers holding his chin. He tries to shake them off by moving his head. All that does for him is change the location of the relentless picking from his temple to his eye. He feels moisture leak from the corner down towards his ear and wonders if his brain has finally started its escape. He'd sound the alarms, except that might only make his head hurt more.

"That's it, kid. You can do it." He has no idea who is speaking, but he wishes he would shut up. If he can't do something useful, like put his brain back where it belongs, then the least he can do is stop making matters worse. "You're scaring me, kid. I need you to open your eyes."

Open his eyes? How is he supposed to do that without a brain?

The fingers from his chin move up, trace the path of the moisture from his ear back towards his eye. The feather touch against his eyelashes makes him flinch, blink, flinch. And blink again. There are blurs of color with no definable edges, like some weird abstract painting. Everything spins around a fixed central point and he squeezes his eyes shut again, tries turning away from the crazy carousel of color.

"No, don't do that. Come on you can do it, kid." The fingers are back at his face, turning his head. The whole situation drags him back to full consciousness, makes him realize that his brain is not the only part of his body that is dead set on escape. And, considering its auto-reverse and eject capabilities, it looks like his stomach is about to win first prize in the race to freedom.

He regains control of his limbs just in time to twist on his side. The entire contents of his stomach come flying out of his mouth in a series of burning, painful contortions. Each one amps up the hammering in his head (both at his temple and behind his eye-thank you very much.) Every time he thinks he must be empty another passes through him with a muscle contraction that starts at his toes and just **presses**.

When it's finally over, he just lies there and twitches. His heart seems to have joined in the effort to escape his body by beating against his chest and ribs like a drummer on speed. He's soaked in sweat, and there's a trail of spit running from the side of his mouth to a puddle of vomit beneath him. He's afraid that he has probably puked in his hair and the thought makes him queasy again before he realizes that his head is cradled in the crook of an elbow, and the hand is rubbing small, soothing circles on his chest. He shifts his head a bit, and wipes the corner of his mouth on the forearm holding him up. He feels the vibration against his back before he hears the deep laugh.

"Sure, just smear spit and puke all over my arm." Thick fingers comb through his hair before the hand reappears under his knee and lifts him up. He cracks an eye and looks down before squeezing them shut again. _And up. And up some more! God, this guy is tall! _He wraps his fingers around the forearm under his face and squeezes, hoping that his stomach doesn't decide to assert its total dominance over the rest of his body again. "You alright, kid."

"No," he answers with complete honesty. "Wish I was dead."

"Don't say that." The world's tallest man moves at a glacial pace. He's so thankful he could cry. "You're going to be fine."

That is so ridiculous, it doesn't deserve a response. Still, he says, "Won't."

"Oh, well, you better be. Otherwise Sis will kill me."

_Sis? I don't..._

"I don't have a sister," he says. "Do I?" He can't remember having a sister. He can't remember...anything. "Can't remember." _I should be worried about that. When I get my head out of this vise, I'll get right on that. _

"What? Wait a minute." They jerk to a stop and his whole body rebels. His head spins. His muscles contract. He gags but somehow manages to not throw up. "Hope? What are you talking about?"

Hope. Is that his name? It might sound vaguely familiar, but then again, it is a common word. Hope.

_/She named you well./_

She. Mom! Platinum hair and gentle eyes; sweet voice singing him to sleep; warm fingers stroking through his hair. A gunshot and a fall and she's gone. How could he forget her? His mom. And that one word, one image, opens the floodgates and it all flows in with such force that Hope is certain his body has liquefied from the impact. He's completely boneless, suspended above the ground and waiting to just turn into a puddle any minute and drip back onto the floor. He just hopes that he doesn't somehow merge with the giant puddle of puke somewhere down there.

"Hey, kid, you're starting to freak me out here." He opens his eyes to find that he's now cradled, facing the ceiling, and is staring into a pair of very blue eyes.

Blue eyes that had been glassy, clouded with pain, and closing in death when he'd last seen them.

"Snow?" He's not sure where the name came from, but as soon as he says it, the man's lips relax and spread into a huge grin. Snow, who is whole and healthy and obviously worried for him. Snow, who had been dying.

"There you are!" _Yep. Here I am. Yippee! _"Are you going to boot again?" Hope considers the question for a moment before shaking his head. _Don't think so, anyway. _Snow smiles at him. "Well, I don't know what you did, Kid. I feel better than I have in...a really long time. But I'm telling you right now: don't ever do it again. You scared the crap out of me."

Hope's not so sure what he did himself. However. "I scared the crap out of you?" He's too tired to pull off the appropriate degree of sarcastic disbelief. "You were dying. Like no joke dying. And you're telling me that next time I should just let you die?" He should be disgusted, but he's too exhausted. Hope looks around from the cradle of Snow's arms, spots the giant blood stain coating the floor. Remembers the blood erupting from Snow like a geyser; his life ebbing with each heartbeat. He shivers once. "Put me down. I'm okay."

"Okay?" Snow harrumphs. "Really?" He lowers Hope's feet to the ground, keeps a hold on both his elbows in case Hope falls over. Considering the extreme vertigo that accompanies the change of position, Hope's pretty grateful for Snow's overprotective streak. "You really have been spending far too much time with Lightning if you think that marathon puking and bouts of amnesia qualify as anything close to 'okay.'" Snow ducks down to get a better look at him. "Not to mention that you're ghost pale."

Snow has a valid point, although Hope can't confirm his pallor. He's not going to mention to Snow that he hasn't even brushed the surface of what's still wrong with him. He has a headache the size of Cocoon embedded at the base of his skull, and his entire body feels as limp as a cooked noodle.

"That's pretty funny. Lightning told me once that I was spending too much time with you." Or something to that effect anyway, implying that Snow is the bad influence. Hope is starting to think that they are all bad influences on one another. And maybe good influences too. After a few minutes, Hope thinks he might feel well enough to stand on his own. The headache is no longer nauseating him. He steps back from Snow and meets no resistance. Snow still hovers close enough to catch him, but keeps his hands to himself.

Snow chuckles. "Did she?" Snow does a cursory check around the cave. "Well, Sis knows best, right?" Hope isn't so ill that he misses the sarcasm. He feels too terrible to try and figure out what it means.

_Sis_. How could Hope have forgotten who 'sis' is? He's been listening to Snow call Lightning 'Sis' for months now. He starts to wonder exactly how much damage he might have done to himself with that little spell he cast earlier.

He's pretty sure that he doesn't want to know.

Speaking of that spell, "how are you feeling?" Snow turns and gives Hope a steady, even look.

"I'm fine. I don't know what you did or how you did it. But I don't even feel sore. Which is pretty amazing considering that I was IMPALED on a rock earlier. And I'm pretty sure that I was close to bleeding to death." Now that Hope can remember, he remembers everything in vivid detail. The super Technicolor ™ version of events.

He wishes he could forget again.

"But I'm not kidding about never doing that again. You were unconscious for a long time. Too long. Even that big galoot Eidolon looked worried before it lumbered away to, you know, wherever it is they go." Hope rolls his eyes at Snow's melodrama. Then finds himself wondering: where do they go?

Snow's hand waving up and down in front of his face snaps him back to attention. Hope shakes his head_ (oh, don't do that again!)_, blinks his eyes and focuses on Snow. Snow squints at him. He opens his mouth (probably to ask Hope if he's okay again) and Hope waylays the question.

"So what's the plan then? Now that you're healed and I'm awake, we need to do something. Right?"

Snow's mouth snaps shut and he looks around. "The plan?" Hope nods. "Kid, you need to get some rest. You look terrible..."

"Rest? We don't have time..."

"You really have been spending too much time with Lightning!" Snow snaps. "There's no reason that we can't take an hour to rest up. It's not going to make any difference..."

"What about everyone else?" Hope can feel the panic build. It feeds his headache, saps his energy even further. "We need to find them. What if they're hurt?" _What if they leave us behind? Continue onward and leave them trapped in this giant cavern?_

"Kid..."

"Don't call me kid!" Hope snaps, just to be contrary.

"Fine. Hope. We're not in any real position to help the others right now." And Hope can see it then. Snow doesn't really believe that the others are alive. His lips might not be saying it, but his eyes sure as hell are. "We don't know where we are but we know that we're below them. From the looks of it, we dropped about thirty feet. There's no way to go back the way we came."

Hope feels the nausea build. "But..."

"That's not to say that we can't find them. But we need to find another way."

"But, Light will come looking for me." Snow's eyebrow goes up. "I mean us. She promised me." _/I won't abandon you./ _"She promised me that she wouldn't abandon me."

Snow puts a hand on Hope's shoulder. He has an irrational urge to swat it away. Snow doesn't believe him. He thinks that Hope is just some irrational, over-emotional 'kid!' Well, he isn't. He doesn't want to be comforted or consoled. He's tired of being treated like some fragile child. Didn't he just save Snow's life? Snow owes him! He deserves to have a say in their game plan. He's tired of just falling into line.

"Hope, listen to me, alright?" Snow's voice is soothing. Hypnotic. "Lightning will move heaven and earth to find you. I know that. She might even try to dig her way through the ten tons of rocks between us and her to do it. Even if the cost is her life."

"But..."

"But Fang won't let it come to that." Snow sits down, looking pale and weak despite all assurances of his renewed health. "Fang promised me that she'd keep an eye Lightning for me."

Confused doesn't cover it for Hope. Fang? Why would Fang watch over Lightning? True, the two women seemed to have reached some sort of truce, but they've never really been on anything like friendly terms. Have they? Just how in the dark is he, anyway? "I don't understand."

Snow leans his head against the wall and closes his eyes. "I promised Fang that I would keep an eye on Vanille if anything happened to her and she promised me to keep an eye on Lightning if anything happened to me." Snow cracks an eye and looks at Hope. "Or you, if something happened to both Lightning and me."

Hope isn't sure how to feel about the revelation. He's uncomfortable with the knowledge that Snow is planning for, or perhaps even expecting, his own death. Hope still wants to believe that they are all going to survive this mess. He still wants to believe that they'll win since they are the good guys. He'd thought that Snow believed that too. He's always said that he believes he'll get his happy ending. If Snow doesn't believe in his happy ending anymore, then how can the rest of them?

"Kid, just come here." Snow pats the ground next to him. "Stop thinking for a few minutes. We get a little rest and we'll start moving. You know that Sis is going to be looking for you right? Her best shot at finding you is if you stay right here."

_I guess that makes sense. _Lightning is the most dedicated person Hope knows. She won't rest until she finds them (which is why Hope feels so bad about letting Snow talk him into resting.) But...he is kind of tired. Screw it, he's beat. He hasn't slept in...he has no idea how long anymore. Snow may be right (though Hope will never say that aloud.) Hope settles next to Snow, leans into him when Snow drapes his arm across his shoulders. Now that he's off his feet with his head pressed to a relatively soft surface, Hope realizes that he is bone weary. He could use a little sleep. Not that he'll admit that to Snow, or anything.

"You keep saying that Lightning is coming for me," Hope mumbles.

"She will."

"I know. But she's coming for you too. Maybe you can't see it. But I can."

"See what kid?" Snow whispers.

"She loves you, you know."

Hope is asleep before Snow responds.

* * *

TBC...

So, let me know if you think it worked, or if you think it should have been its own story.  
Okay. I'll tell you that I really wanted to write this chapter from Snow's POV. But there are so many things that I'd like to keep below the surface with him, I don't think it would be fair to give anyone (even me) a peep show into his thoughts. We'll just have to keep on inferring.

A few chapters back, one reviewer made a comment about 'renew' or 'raise' spells and what would happen. I had actually already started this chapter specifically planning to deal with that issue.

I was hoping to have this up yesterday, but that didn't work out. I spent the day in an amusement park with my best friend, her husband and her twin four (and a half) year old boys. It was the boys' first trip to an amusement park and it was SO MUCH FUN watching them get on all the little rides. I got home last night and started to write but 8 hours of chasing after two little boys hopped up on sugar and adrenaline-I couldn't see straight to finish the chapter.


	16. Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

Okay. This chapter is REALLY LATE! But I'm going to be slowing down a bit now that Summer is here. Summer means OUTSIDE. Means the pool and the beach and barbecues, oh my. My new goal is 2-3 chapters a month until it's done. We really are on the downward slide now, but I won't say I'm almost done because DAMN IT I'm still in Mah'Habara.  
Thank you for all the unbelievably kind reviews that I've received. You guys are awesome! Feedback really does keep me plugging away at this. (I now sacrifice sleep to write, since I don't have any other time in the day. Three hours a night is enough, right?)  
One anonymous reviewer commented that they were afraid this story is heading towards a pairing. To you I will say, Love comes in all forms my friend. I have no plans to change the direction of my story at this point. I stand by my earlier statement that this is not a romance, so rest easy. I'll warn if there are any major paradigm shifts.

* * *

"Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be!"  
-MIGUEL DE CERVANTES, _Don Quixote_

-Horseshoes and Hand Grenades-

They walk in silence down the dark corridors, following the pale light from the torch Fang carries. The cave is frigid, the air close. Lightning can see her breath misting in puffs with each exhale. It's a strange combination, somehow incongruous with her mind's associations for each feeling. Something in her wants to associate close, claustrophobic areas with warmth, and frigid temperatures as open and exposed. _Nothing is as it seems._

Lightning has taken up Snow's usual position as rearguard. She trails behind her friends, counts out the distance in wall sconces, dead ends and disappointments. Two hours of walking and exploring has yielded nothing but frustration-a series of truncated tunnels and one collapsed artery leading nowhere. Two hours and they're no closer to finding a path to Snow and Hope. Lightning can't help but feel antsy the farther they go. Her skin crawls with the desire to switch tactics. She can't help but feel that each passing minute decreases the odds of finding Snow and Hope.

_Stop!_

She directs her attention from her lost companions to the present ones. Her eyes are adjusting far better to the low light that she'd have expected, and give her an excellent view of her faltering friends. Vanille leans heavily on Sazh, drooping more and more with each step. She looks pale and pinched, her pain obvious to Lightning, dimness notwithstanding. The cold is more than likely exacerbating her pain. Lightning knows from unfortunate experience the misery of hypothermia and the intense discomfort of cold injuries. Muscles contract in the cold to conserve heat which can cause cramps and spasms. A simple pulled muscle can become a hobbling and painful injury if the muscle gets too cold for too long. Vanille needs rest and warmth. Sazh is doing his best to prod Vanille onward but he's starting to lose the battle. It probably isn't helping that he's running low on his own reserves of strength.

Fang shows no sign of slowing or flagging. _A woman after my own heart!_ Lightning can't help but admire and appreciate Fang's drive and fortitude. Fang seems determined to keep her word about helping Lightning search for the two missing members of their group. She has been scanning the main cavern for any possible tunnels or shafts that might lead them down. Lightning wants nothing more than to continue her search. She glances behind her into the dark cavern, wonders again if she's made a mistake following Fang onward instead of standing her ground and searching for Snow and Hope. Every step forward that she takes feels like miles of distance. Every minute feels like hours. There is a near overwhelming dread that she is never going to see them again; that she has failed them utterly.

She tears her gaze away from their trail and focuses on what's in front of her. She can't undo what's been done, and second guessing logical decisions will accomplish nothing but driving her deeper into depression and despair. She needs to trust in her companions and herself.

She only wishes it were that simple.

Lightning used to trust herself implicitly. She's always had raw talent, training and a cool, logical mind; combined, these attributes all made her an exceptional soldier. She was cold, distant and detached, making her an excellent tactician. Where others would get bogged down in sentiment, Lightning would be able to distill a situation down to the bare facts and make clear, concise decisions based solely on facts and circumstances. Once upon a time, Lightning would have never doubted a battlefield decision.

Then the fal'Cie stole her sister from her. That one moment stole her equilibrium, set her on a mission of vengeance and instilled in her a bloodlust of immense proportion. She's been running on adrenaline and anger ever since. She has yet to discover a limit to her violent urges. There is something evil growing within her; she can feel it. She no longer trusts herself to make decisions grounded in logic. She now feels adrift, unsure of her own heart and mind. Rage is her master, dictating her actions. She finds the urge to hit and hurt anything in her way nearly overwhelming. She has come to the frightening conclusion that she will only stop thirsting for more violence when she is dead.

So, Lightning hasn't trusted herself since the day she lost Serah. She's been sloppy and self-destructive, her motivations muddled and nonsensical. The only people that had offered her any incentive to do better-to be better-were Snow and Hope. Hope, because she'd sworn to protect him, to never abandon him, and his faith and belief in her drove her to live up to his expectations. To be a better person. Snow because she trusted him to keep her in check, stand by her side and call her on all her crap. They were-are-her reasons to try and survive this mess intact.

Speaking of intact, Vanille looks to be losing the battle to remain conscious and Sazh appears to be losing the battle against gravity to keep himself and Vanille on their feet. She'd like nothing better than to ignore them and their distress and continue on her search for Snow and Hope. She can't be sure if that's her logic or her evil speaking anymore, but she recognizes it as an ignoble feeling either way. She didn't save her companions earlier only to kill them now. "Fang," Lightning calls from the back of the group.

"Ya?" Fang pauses, continues to peer into the darkness before them rather than turn to face her companions. "What's up?"

"I think we need to take a rest." Fang looks incredulous as she turns back toward Lightning. Those might not have been the last words Fang expected to hear from Lightning, but they are pretty damn close. Lightning gestures to where Sazh and Vanille are flagging. Fang glances at Sazh and Vanille and her brow furrows. She walks back toward Vanille, stuffs the torch in Lightning's hands, grabs Vanille's chin and tilts her head to get a look at her. Vanille's eyes are glassy and bruised looking, her skin waxy and pale. There is a bluish tint to her lips that speaks of mild to moderate hypothermia. They need to warm her up and let her rest or there's a good chance the girl will succumb to exposure.

"Yeah, alright. A rest it is then," Fang mumbles. She chafes at Vanille's arms hard, a smart tactic to offer warmth and increased circulation. She takes Vanille's right arm and pulls it across her shoulders, takes most of the burden from Sazh. "We'll stop here while I find us a secure place to rest for a while. Alright love?"

Vanille shivers, hums an "Uh huh," as Fang helps her settle on the floor against the wall of the corridor.

"We need to get her warmed up." Lightning says. Something tickles her mind.

_/...it'll be worth it when we're in Mah'Habara. It can get awfully cold in those tunnels.../_

"Do we still have that animal hide or did we lose it in the cave in?" Lightning asks. Smart money is on its gone, based solely on their crappy luck.

Fang gives Lightning a thoughtful look. "I'm not sure which bag it's packed in. You wanna go grab my pack so I can look?" Lightning nods, glances around and spots the bag. She grabs it, hands it to Fang who says a cursory, "Cheers," and roots around. "Aha! Look-y here. I've still got some." She pulls out what looks like maybe a third of the hide. "Good call, my friend!" She shakes out the fur. "Sit forward, love." She wraps the hide around Vanille's shaking shoulders, tucks it tight. "How's that then?"

Vanille nods and shivers. Lightning looks over at Sazh. He remains on his feet, swaying in an imaginary breeze. Lightning watches him for a moment before saying, "Sazh, why don't you go sit with Vanille? The two of you can rest and warm up a bit. I'll keep watch while Fang finds a safe camp for us." Sazh looks over at her with heavy eyelids, stares at her as if he's debating her suggestion.

When he says, "Excuse me? I didn't catch that, Soldier," Lightning decides that he's way too weary to remain standing. He's going to collapse before he processes her statement. She takes him by the elbow and nudges. "Hey, where're we going?" He eyes her hand with trepidation.

"**You **are going to sit down before you fall over." She leads him to the wall next to Vanille, then presses down on his shoulder until he sits. "And **I** am going to stand here and keep watch while Fang finds us a good camp site." Fang looks over at her and Lightning says to her, "Unless you want me to find a camp site."

Fang narrows her eyes at Lightning, then casts a worried look back at Vanille. She gives Lightning another suspicious look. "Um..." It appears that Fang can't decide which option sucks less. Lightning understands Fang's reservations. Fang knows that all Lightning wants to do is search for Hope and Snow. And Lightning will freely admit that if she goes on a 'camp site' hunt, she might deviate from her task in favor of finding her missing companions. All these delays are setting Lightning's teeth on edge. She decides to take the choice away from Fang, make the decision herself.

"I'll take care of Vanille and Sazh," Lightning promises. She means it. She may not be as reliable these days as she used to be, but she'd never shirk her duties. "The faster you go, the sooner we can get them settled for some rest." Lightning feels her patience siphoning away. Her whole body is tensing and twitching at the inactivity. Time is an inexorable bitch. Each moment of indecision is time wasted.

Fang spends a moment debating before agreeing. "Alright. I'm not going more than one hundred meters from here. If I don't find anything, then we'll have to just set up a perimeter here."

Lightning shrugs. "That's not the worst thing I've ever heard. We haven't had any run ins since we've been here."

Fang nods as she pulls her pack on. "Yeah, I know. But that's worrisome in and of itself. Mah'Habara is a fal'Cie cavern. The lack of regular wildlife might indicate varieties of magic enhanced creatures or even Cie'th. Nothing we really want to run into in the darkness."

"Great. More good news." Sazh mumbles before closing his eyes. "Think we'll ever catch a break?"

Lightning doesn't even think about her answer. "No," she states, keeping an eye on Fang until she disappears from sight.

* * *

Lightning peers into the darkness. Fang has only been gone a few minutes, but Lightning is counting them off like they're years spent in thumbscrews. She paces back and forth, trying to burn off some of her nervous energy. It's just making it worse. Her stomach flips at the idea of Snow and Hope alone and possibly injured squaring off against Cie'th, or hell, even a fal'Cie. It just makes her itch to get moving again. It is taking all her willpower to stay put and not go off on her own. She looks back at Sazh and Vanille, sees the exhaustion inscribed on every line of their bodies and reminds herself that they need someone to look after them. They deserve her loyalty too after all they have done for her.

_This should not be this hard._

She sits down across the cavern from her friends. Sazh has his arm around Vanille's shoulders, Vanille's head is propped on Sazh's chest. They both have their eyes closed. Lightning's heart wrenches at the familiar tableau. She remembers Snow holding her as she held Hope, the three of them offering and receiving comfort in the wake of terrifying revelations. She'd been so at peace for that brief moment. It's only been a few days. It feels like a lifetime.

She misses them. There's an ache that she can't reach to rub or alleviate. She's heard soldiers speak about pain from missing limbs. Phantom pains, they'd called them. Feet that were blown off by mines or hands that required amputation after injury still hurting long after they've been lost. She thinks she might understand a shadow of that pain now. There's nothing to tend or soothe, but it hurts all the same. She shifts and grunts, aggravated at herself for letting her mind wander back to Snow and Hope. She needs to think about something else or she'll go mad.

Alright. Let's get real here. **Madder**. She passed mad about two weeks back.

She looks back at her companions, wishing one of them was awake to distract her. Vanille is sleeping, but Sazh is only dozing. She can't bring herself to rouse him from his light doze despite her desperation. She doubts that he's really slept since the Purge. Sazh has lost too much to find any sort of real peace. Lightning is ashamed at her own petulance. She's so enveloped in her own need that she's once again forgotten that everyone has lost here; lost far too much since this all started. And they all care about Snow and Hope. They are all 'family' now and she's sure that they want to find the missing members of their group, if not as much as she does, then at the least more than she's crediting them.

Lightning shakes her head and stretches her legs in front of her, determined to calm herself down. She needs to get some control and focus back. She's feels strung out and pulled too tight, like one more bit of pressure will cause a rupture. And an ugly one at that. She puts her head back against the wall behind her, crosses her ankles, and stares at a crack in the ceiling.

She flashes back to the cave in and the terrifying certainty of death. The horrifying weight of dirt and rock pouring down and burying her. Burying everything.

She closes her eyes against the memory of falling rocks and hears...something. Her eyes snap open. She's on her feet, weapon drawn in a heartbeat. She freezes and listens.

"What's up, Soldier?"

"Ssh." She hisses. She peers into the darkness, hoping to spot the source of the sound. Sazh perks up, looking for whatever has Lightning on edge.

"You hear somethin'?"

"SSH. Quiet!" She hears it again. A voice in the darkness. "Did you hear that?" She looks at Sazh expectantly.

"Hear what?"

"The voice." She looks at Sazh for confirmation. He looks confused. She can't contain the disgust, lets an "uck," slip out before pressing her ear to the wall. Sound travels faster through solid objects than through the air. She learned that trick as a kid playing on train tracks. If the voice is something other than her own wishful thinking, she figures she'll hear it through the cave walls. "It sounds like..."

_{HELP ME!}_

_Hope!_

"Hope!" She whispers. "HOPE!" She yells. Listens for an answer. She knows his voice as sure as she knows her own. She looks back at Sazh. He has a strange expression on his face. It looks like pity. "It's Hope. He's yelling for help!" Sazh looks away from her. She gets a cold, churning pit in her stomach. "You don't believe me?" He won't look at her. "Come here and listen!" She presses her ear to the wall again, willing Hope to speak again.

"Look, Soldier..." She goes cold to her toes.

"No! This isn't my imagination, Sazh."

"Look, I'm sure that you heard something." And with those words, it's all clear to her.

"You think they're dead, don't you?"

"No!" He denies. He sighs. "Yes. And you do too." She shakes her head. "Don't give me that! Why do you think you're hearing them in the walls?"

_I don't. _Lightning suddenly feels like she's on fire. Her face burns and her head throbs with rage. "Or maybe I'm actually hearing him." She doesn't believe that they are gone. "Why can't that be? Why do you think they have to be dead?" Does she? "We survived."

"Yeah." Sazh agrees. "Barely."

"There's no such thing as almost when it comes to surviving. You either do or you don't. And we did." She feels like a fool. Were they just appeasing her all along? Sazh telling her that they'd find Snow and Hope is obviously crap. Did Fang deceive her too? Her body shakes at the idea, and she gets a bright, sharp pain in her head, presses the heel of her hand into her eye as a counterpoint.

"Alright look..."

"Don't," Lightning snaps, tastes the blood before she even notices it's pouring from her nose. Dizziness crashes over her like a wave. Sazh is on his feet, hands at her elbows. She wants to shove him away _(hit him!)_ but sense asserts itself. Sazh is not her enemy and right now, he's probably all that's holding her up.

"I'm so sorry, Soldier." Sazh whispers to her. The words are impossible to hear. She can't take the genuine remorse in his voice. He believes they're gone. It shouldn't matter to her except...she trusts Sazh. Trusts his assessments of situations. Trusts him to offer sanity in the maelstrom of lunacy around and within. Trusts him to offer the logic that eludes her these days. Her own mind is so fuzzy, so jumbled by her pain and exhaustion. So now she can't help but wonder: is she deluding herself? Has she really slipped into hallucinatory madness? She hangs her head, watches blood drip onto the floor at her feet until the tears welling up blur her vision. She sniffs once, hard, wonders if she really is losing the final shreds of her sanity. Wonders if she really cares anymore.

"What the hell is going on here?" Fang snaps, announcing her return. "I'm gone, what, ten minutes?" Lightning hears the footsteps approach, sees the toes of Fang's shoes before fingers slip under her chin and press up. She keeps her eyes averted. She can't look Fang in the eye right now. "You alright then?"

She shakes her head in answer. She doesn't know what she is anymore, but she's positive that it's nothing close to 'alright.' She shakes free of Sazh's hold, steps away, presses herself back to the wall. The rock is cool against her heated face, offering some relief from the misery. She needs privacy. She needs an hour to fall apart without spectators. She needs to figure out how she's going to keep going when she's lost...everything. Again.

"What happened?" Fang asks. Lightning doesn't answer. She has no idea how to answer. She's losing her mind bit by bit. Half of her can't wait until its gone so she won't know it's happening anymore.

"She thought she heard Hope through the wall," Sazh whispers. Lightning shuts her eyes, presses her forehead to the wall.

"Well, that's good then, right?" Fang sounds confused. Sazh heaves a sigh. "What does that mean? What'd you say?"

"The truth. "

"What'd you do?" Fang sounds irate.

"It needed to be done," Sazh declares. "It's not doing her any good. I should know. Denial only hurts more." Lightning knows Sazh speaks from hard experience. His hope to see his son again left him with a heartbreaking armload of crystal instead of a living Dajh. He hopes to spare her a similar loss. She should appreciate his consideration.

She really doesn't. At all.

"We talked about this," Fang whispers. "We decided."

"Enough," Lightning whispers. She can't listen to this talk. She is tired of following, of having no control over her own fate. She's been weak, ceding control to others. She has allowed her exhaustion and pain to dictate her actions and run her life. That's over now. Everything she cares about now-her family-is on the line here. If her friends feel they need to walk a different path, so be it. She needs to know the truth, whatever that may be. She will not give up just because it's easy; because it might spare her. She's never been a coward. She refuses to become one now. She turns and faces them. "Whatever you two have decided...good for you. I'm still looking. If you're not with me, then stay out of my way."

Speaking the words lifts a weight. Now that she's decided on a course of action, she's got to move. Should she go forward or backward? She spends less than a second debating a path. She knows there is no point in retracing their steps. Fang is right about the instability of the cave behind her. She can't dig through the fallen rocks without risking killing herself, or worse, killing Snow and Hope. She needs to move forward. She grabs a torch from the sconce just ahead, checks the pitch before lighting it off their torch.

"Alright, wait a minute," Fang stammers. Lightning ignores her. She's not interested in what these people have to say anymore. She will not try to deter them from their chosen path just as she will not be deterred from hers. She takes two steps and Fang steps into her path. "Would you just wait?"

Lightning narrows her eyes. She feels that growing evil inside her spark a desire for violence. It would be so easy to hit right now. To lash out with fists and feet and just hurt someone as badly as she hurts. The voice of rationality holds her fast. She clenches her fist around the torch, steps back and says, "What?"

"I told you I'd go with you."

"Do you think they're dead already?" Lightning fires back. Fang pauses and Lightning steps around her. It's all the answer she needs.

"Hey!" Fang snaps, sticking to Lightning's heels. "I don't know, right? But I promised I'd help you look and I keep my word! Always."

"No thanks. I have enough pessimism for two already," Lightning picks up her pace. "I appreciate the sentiment, but I work better alone anyway."

Fang barks a sharp laugh. "Really? Who do you think you're kidding here?" Fang stops moving. "Whether you believe it or not, you're gonna need my help, little Miss Soldier! I've actually been in Mah'Habara before. A lot. How many times have you been here? Or in any cavern for that matter? What the hell do you know about spelunking?"

Lightning pauses and glances back over her shoulder at Fang. Sarcasm usually irritates her, but she can see the frustration radiating off the other woman. As much as she wants to ignore Fang, Lightning has to admit that she has a valid point. She doesn't know anything about caves in general, or about this cave in particular. She could probably wander this cavern until the end of her natural life without finding Snow and Hope.

Good thing that's another week at this point. Tops.

"So, is that a yes then?" Fang sounds relieved. Lightning feels guilty for heaping more stress on top of an already overwrought group of people. "You'll wait and let me help you?"

_Wait. _Her heart sinks. _Again with the waiting._

"I'm done with waiting." The truth is she can't relax. She won't find any peace at all. "If Snow or Hope or both are injured, then time is our enemy. I need to get moving. If you can't, I understand."

"You know what?" Fang steps forward and grabs Lightning's right arm. Every muscle in Lightning's body tenses in anticipation of a good, hard fight. She wants so badly to just HIT something. Or someone. She restrains herself and refrains from lashing out. Barely. "Do you see this?" Fang points to a strange discoloration on Lightning's arm. Right where her latest injury had been. "What do you think that is?"

Lightning's muscles uncoil and her mind goes blank. She stares at the discoloration she'd thought was bruising. Or dirt. Or scarring. In the direct torchlight, she can see that it's none of the above. The skin isn't bluish purple or yellowish green. It's not any color of the bruising spectrum she's ever seen. It's not the gradated blacks and browns of ground in dirt. It's not the browns of new scars, or even the silvers and whites of old ones.

It's uniform, flat gray.

"Or your leg?" Fang says. She doesn't want to look, but she's no coward. Her stomach flutters and sours. She tastes bile in the back of her throat. Lightning looks at her newly healed leg, sees the same odd gray coloring creeping up her left thigh. "What's that?" Fang asks, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. _I don't know_. "Any ideas?"

_No clue._ There's a ball of lead in her stomach, and a suspicion growing in her mind. She wants to run. She can't escape this enemy.

"Wanna guess?" Fang amps up her sarcasm, but dials down the tone. Keeping all horrible secrets between the Lightning, Fang and the walls, it seems.

_Not really. _She may throw up. She's not sure. Fang should get clear of the splash zone, just in case.

"Well I'll tell you then." Fang snaps. She sounds as sick as Lightning feels. "It's starting. Right? You understand what I'm saying to you?" Lightning trembles. Fights to stay still. She needs to be strong now. "All that magical nonsense you pulled today. I've never seen anything like that before. That wasn't normal! Not even for magic, which is always changing. I've touched Vanille's brand before. That never happened. So that? That was all you, my friend. You almost killed yourself with that little stunt. You've become a like a lightning rod for magic. Your powers are growing into something I've never seen before. And as a consequence..."

"I'm changing." She expects the words to shatter her. They don't. Saying it doesn't make it worse, despite her fears. In fact, they're almost a relief. No more hiding. No more running. The enemy has breached the gates. She feels calm flood through her, wash over her. Now that it's happening, there's nothing left to fear. She'll deal with this the way she's dealt with every other obstacle in her life. She'll deal with it by hurtling or demolishing it. Or maybe she'll break herself apart upon it. Whatever works.

"Yeah," Fang agrees. "So you need to stop this now, okay?" Lightning's shaking her head. "What does that mean? No? You're not going to stop?"

"No. There's no point anymore."

"Are you completely suicidal? Have you really gone completely round the bend?" Fang snaps. Her frustration could fill the entirety of Cocoon. She's incandescent with ire.

"No," Lightning answers. "Well, maybe," she reconsiders. " But that's not why. I just have nothing left to lose. Except for them. And now more than ever, I need to move." There are no more doubts left. There's no time for almost. She is a monster. Right now. It isn't some distant possibility. Some abstract. It's an absolute. Her present and future. "I don't have time to waste sitting around here resting or sleeping. I don't know how much time I have left, but I'm going to use every second of it to find Snow and Hope." _Dead or alive._

"And I told you I'd help you do that," Fang declares. "I keep my promises. But I've made other promises too."

"I know." Lightning doesn't expect Fang to waste her time following a monster around in the dark to search for the dead. It's a ridiculous notion. She still has a chance. She and Vanille and Sazh all have a chance to come through this nightmare. To survive. And that's what Lightning wants them to do. She wants them to survive this mess. And hopefully beat that bastard Barthandelus and all his brethren for their sick, twisted games. Lightning allows herself one moment of anger and disappointment that she'll never have that satisfaction. She lets it go. "You have to take care of Sazh and Vanille."

"Yeah, I do! But I made a promise to the Hero," Fang snaps. It's a gut punch that steals Lightning's breath. It's something she's never considered. "I promised him I'd keep you safe and alive if he wasn't around to do it," Fang whispers. "And I keep my word. Always."

"You also promised me..." She's not ready yet, but soon she will be. She needs to know if Snow and Hope are gone. If they're not, she needs to save them. If they are, she needs to know. She needs to bury them and mourn them. Then she'll be ready.

"I did. And I'll keep that one too if I have to. But the one I made to the Hero is more important right now. You're not the only one who feels like she's failed." Fang chokes up. Lightning blinks the sting from her eyes. If she starts crying now, she might just drown in her misery. "So, I need you to give me one hour to set Sazh and Vanille up. Then we'll go. Deal? That's fair, right?"

One hour. It's not unreasonable. So why does it feel like such a hardship?

_Because you're a selfish bitch._

Shame burns her cheeks. Fang has been a loyal and steadfast friend. She's grieving too. She's lost as much as Lightning, if not more. She's lost a home, whatever family might have been here, her memories, her purpose. She's given all of herself over to her new friends, and all she's asked for in return is an hour. Like Serah only asking for understanding. How can Lightning consider making the same mistake again, now with this new sister in arms?

No matter the temptation.

"Alright. Of course, it's fair."

Fang smiles. "Right then." She claps Lightning on the shoulder and heads toward their waiting companions.

Lightning wonders if she's made a mistake.

* * *

TBC...

Almost only counts in Horseshoes and Hand Grenades. My grandfather used to say that to me all the time. Or, Almost only counts in Horseshoes, Hand Grenades and Tactical Nuclear Weapons. ;)

Anyway, this one ended before I was ready. I really was planning on starting Fang and Lightning's journey in the dark. But...it just felt right to end it here. So, sorry so short. You know, for me. I'll see you all in JULY. Hope it's not too disappointing.


	17. Pandora's Box

Disclaimer: This story is for entertainment purposes and I make no claims to (or profit from) the plot or characters of Final Fantasy XIII.

On to chapter 17. Hope you are all enjoying July. (The weather in New York is HOT!) I'm looking forward to another weekend of fun in the sun.

* * *

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."  
-Joseph Conrad

-Pandora's Box-

_'Confess! ' _

_She flinches, head throbbing and stomach clenching. Her thoughts are muddled. She has no idea what they want from her anymore. If they'll just stop shouting long enough for her brain to play catch up then she'll say whatever they want. Her whole body is broken. There's so many different pains, she can't separate them to identify them. She hears an irritating buzzing moan, wishes they'd stop with the noise so she can just think, before she realizes that the noise is coming from her. Vocalization of her own cramping, twisted agony._

_'Confess, and you'll be granted absolution. Meet the Maker with a clean conscience.' She can't open her eyes. The burning swell of the flesh of her face, coupled with her weakness makes it pointless. The blood and dried tears caked into her eyelids adhere them shut, making it impossible. The pain through her back from her dislocated shoulders makes lying there a misery and moving impossible. She can't move her legs at all. The pain radiating from her toes upward is all that tells her they are still attached._

_They'd hung her from her arms, torn the shoulders from the sockets, hung weights from her body until every bone dislocated. Ordering her to confess and be cleansed. Days and days of slowly being torn to pieces._

_She has no idea of what she's accused. Her crimes may have been revealed at the commencement of her 'trial' days-weeks-years ago. Her throat is raw, sandblasted, from screaming. She remembers crying, shouting for her mother. Her mother who has been dead for more than a decade. An innate and human quality, calling to a parent to end torment, even on into adulthood. Surviving even death. She'd screamed and cried until her voice was as bloody as her body, until her mind as destroyed as her muscles. Until she can no longer recall the face of her mother, let alone her name. An eternity of torture has wiped clear everything about her._

_Everything but the warm glow of the brand at the nape of her neck. _

_They'd tried to carve it from her flesh. Burn it from her. Remove the 'mark of the beast.' Each layer of skin removed only grew back into a thicker, warmer, more intricate design. And not just that. The quiet hum that had filled her mind had gotten louder and clearer with each assault until the hum became murmur, and murmur became voice._

_Became a shout._

**Give yourself over. Give in**.

_She's lifted and she screams. She hadn't believed she could hurt any more. There are no words to describe how wrong she'd been. Every part of her body sounds off. Every torn muscle, every dislocated joint, every cracked and broken bone __shifts and shrieks. She chokes and tastes blood, swallows, and retches. She's dropped again, hits with a hollow thud, and hot, burning bile and blood inch up her throat, into her sinuses, drip from her nose and dribble from her mouth. She gags again, snorts, feels tears pour through her sealed eyelids._

_She lays on her side, the warm liquid from her stomach soaking into her hair. She hears something clack above her, muffling sounds, closing off air. Then hammering of metal into wood. She shifts, kicks out. Her foot hits an obstruction with a hollow bang, rebounds. She thrashes, hits walls all around. Her heart kicks at her broken ribs harder than her broken limbs beat at the walls of her prison._

_Her coffin!_

_She opens her mouth to shout, gets a throat full of dirt. She tries to spit, feels the dirt turn to mud in her mouth. She breathes, inhales soil and soot. Her brand tingles, soothes. Whispers to her. Offers sweet blessed relief. _

_Offers oblivion._

_She kicks out, feels the broken bones of her feet shift and tear through tissue. Feels blood trickle. She shouts as the brand on her neck prickles and burns. The pain in her body ebbs. Cools. Disappears. An insidious voice whispers sweet nothings to her. Platitudes._

_Promises of retribution and revenge._

_She hears the slapping of both shovel and spade on the earth above. Hears muffled voices and cheers. She knows they'll sow the soil above with salt to keep the land fallow and barren. Nothing should grow from the bones of the damned. They will continue to desecrate the unrepentant demon for a generation, as laws and rites demand. Rage blossoms, germinates. The pain of a broken body twists into biting pleasure as her body jerks. She can hear the popping and growling, the strength banding around and through her. Clawed fingers press up, out. Wood creaks, splinters, gives; the earth parts at her command until it is once more beneath her feet. Cheers turn to screams and she tastes vengeance._

_It has the sweet copper tang of blood._

* * *

She jerks awake, dizzy and disoriented. Her heart pounds out a rapid thud-thud-thud in her throat in response to yet another violent and gore soaked nightmare. She can almost taste the blood and viscera on her tongue. Almost feel the hot, sweet, metallic gouts gushing down her throat into her empty stomach. Sating a hunger she's never known, quenching a thirst she's never felt.

Almost feels the orgasmic relief of wallowing in the ruins of her victims.

She shivers and recoils in disgust. Her stomach rumbles once at the thought of eating, before the horror nauseates her. She pulls herself from her dark thoughts to take in her surroundings. The floor is freezing beneath her legs, the walls icy and jagged at her back. Lightning pants, watches her breath fog the frigid air. She glances at Fang and notes the unhealthy bluish tint to her lips and skin. The dark cavern of Mah'Habara hovers near the freezing point, but Lightning can't feel it. Her skin is flushed with warmth. She is comfortable.

She no longer feels the cold; not like humans do.

Lightning stands up, stiff from her impromptu nap. She doesn't remember falling asleep. She knows that she hadn't intended it. In fact, she'd flat out refused to sleep when Fang had suggested it. Unfortunately, the needs of her body had superseded her will. She resents the fact that her monster's body still requires sleep; feels as if the least this sick metamorphosis can do for her is free her from the bonds of this mortal coil.

She's never been very lucky.

Lightning scans the dark corridor before turning back to her companion. Fang slumps against the wall opposite her. She shivers in the darkness, body curled in on herself to conserve some of its heat. Lightning feels guilty for letting her friend suffer in the cold while she remains comfortably immune. She unsnaps her cloak and drapes it over the shivering woman.

She and Fang had spent the better part of six hours marching through the twisting caverns of Mah'Habara before Fang finally told her they needed a rest. Fang stood swaying on her feet, looking pathetic and exhausted. Lightning couldn't prevent the flashback image of her friend laying unconscious, injured and dying only hours before. Despite the urgent dread of the memory, Lightning had wanted to argue the point. It had been almost half a day since they'd lost Hope and Snow and her restless, broken heart hadn't been ready to give up the search just yet.

Her exhausted aching body had held a different opinion, however, and dragged her mind kicking and screaming into slumber. A nightmare plagued slumber, tinged with agony and ecstasy.

_/squelching splashing pouring slurping crunching screaming tearing biting rending chewing swallowing. Devouring./_

She shakes her head hard in an effort to loosen the hold of the dream-memory's talons. There's a fear growing in her gut, but it's a new thing. This isn't the fear of becoming a monster. This fear is born of her apathy-No! Her anticipation. The dreams that had so disgusted her are now nearly narcotic in their intensity. She finds that she craves the violent images and the satisfaction of bloodshed and vengeance. She no longer feels revulsion at the gore and slaughter. She almost feels euphoric.

It's... bloodcurdling.

She puts the fear and the dream from her mind and runs her fingertips along the strange gray flesh at her knee. She expects it to be rough or scaly like a serpent's skin, but it feels like human flesh. Normal in texture if not color. If anything, it's softer. Like newborn baby skin. She slips her hand upwards, traces toward her thigh, feels the line of demarcation and shivers. It doesn't feel like it has advanced, but she can't be sure.

She's not sure that she should even think about it. She's not sure that she really cares anymore. That fact is the most worrisome of all.

She fiddles with the lip of the buckle at the top of her boot, toys with the idea of removing said boot to get a look at her formerly shattered limb. There's a morbid curiosity eating at her, and she can't help but wonder if the change is restricted to coloration, or if the entire limb has become malformed. She's seen the deformed appendages of the Cie'th. Elongated arms with clubbed, claw tipped hands used as instruments to rend and bludgeon by the lumbering, vacant beasts. Feet twisted and gnarled, deformed and transformed into something unrecognizable; great for loping and stomping, but useful for little else. Is that what lurks beneath the veil of her clothing? She pulls on the boot strap until the tongue of the buckle releases the leather and the top of the boot loosens, slips open...

"You alright then?" Fang's voice startles her. Lightning tugs on and tightens the leather until the strap is just shy of painful and refastens the buckle with a speed and efficiency that speaks of intense familiarity. Pandora's Box will have to remain sealed for now. She's not sure she's ready to look; she's sure as hell not ready to have an audience. She straightens the boot, traces dirty fingernails over the lines of the buckle. Lightning feels like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Like she's been caught peeping through a keyhole, or reading someone's diary. She knows it's ridiculous.

There's a huge disparity between knowing and feeling, it seems.

Lightning is almost afraid to look up and meet Fang's eyes. She's not sure what she'll see (she's also not sure why she cares, which only bothers her even more). Pity? Fear? Disgust? Condescension? A quick glance up provides the answer.

None of the above.

Fang is still curled up and rubbing sleep from her eyes. She has barely even glanced at Lightning. The palpable relief that settles over Lightning annoys her. She sneers at her own foolishness. She hadn't been doing anything wrong. At all. Why should Fang have an opinion? And if she does, why should Lightning even care? She feels her face heat further, her head buzzing with the absurdity of the entire situation. She digs her fingernails into the skin of her knee as a distraction from the ridiculous line of thought. _Get a grip!_

She watches Fang work her way upright, fingers clasped tight to the edges of Lightning's cloak, holding in what little warmth it offers. "Cheers for this," Fang whispers, voice wobbling with cold. She burrows deeper for a moment, chafes at her arms before she holds the cloak out for Lightning to take back.

"You can keep it if you need it." She has no real need of the cloak right now. Her changing body is radiating heat like a furnace. She knows that fact should alarm her as it proof of her rapid evolution into some sort of magical monster. Right now, she's too grateful for the shield against the relentless cold to drum up any discernable amount of concern.

Her complete lack of interest should worry her as well. She'll have to work on that at some point.

"Nah, thanks anyway." Fang says. She sounds almost regretful, but her eyes and posture speak of certitude. "Once we get moving, I should be good."

"Alright," Lightning says, settling the cloak back on her shoulders. "Let me know if you change your mind." Lightning smoothes over the familiar material, fingers toying with the scorch marks and tears. Regret wells at her uniform's deplorable state. Her vest is gone and, with it, all indications of her rank. As a sergeant in the Guardian Corp, she'd been one of the elite. The top of her class. She'd worked so hard to attain and keep her rank and had been so proud of the achievement. She'd always kept her uniform and gear in meticulous order and condition as a testament to that pride.

Now look at it. And her.

She's a wreck. Her uniform is in tatters as is her once steadfast control. She supposes the near instinctual disgrace she feels at her uniform's deplorable state is absurd. She knows that she had been little more than a fal'Cie pawn in her position as sergeant in PSICOM. Even worse. She'd been a guard dog to a lunatic master, willing to kill on command despite a complete absence of cause or provocation. Had Serah's life not been on the line during the Purge, Lightning has no doubt she would have assisted in the mindless round up and slaughter of Cocoon citizens. It would have been her duty and she would have done it. If not proudly, then without complaint.

Orders are orders and a target's a target.

The thought sickens her now. Time and circumstance offer her a liberated perspective. She is now one guard dog turned Big Bad Wolf and she hopes to get a good taste of her master before it puts her down for good. She shouldn't be upset about her unkempt uniform. In fact, she should set her cloak on fire for all it represents! Better to be naked than clothed in the uniform of the enemy. She wallows in her righteous indignation for a moment before exhaling hard. Her puffed up rage dissipates in a breath. She's too exhausted to maintain any sort of ire, righteous or otherwise. She drops the material and the line of thought.

It's only a cloak.

"You ready to go then?" Fang says, either unaware of, or uninterested in Lightning's internal debates. Lightning nods then stops. Listens. "Something wrong?"

Lightning presses a finger to her lips, then taps her jaw next to her ear in a 'listen up' gesture. Fang shuts up and listens. Shuffling, scraping, echoing. Something is creeping up on them. Lightning presses her back to one wall as Fang melts into the other. Fang clenches a fist around her Bladed Lance as Lightning draws her Edged Carbine. They wait, poised, neither one breathing for fear of discovery.

Lightning readies her weapon for use of the blade. These quarters are too close and dark to risk gun play. Fang tenses, spins her Bladed Lance once for momentum, readying a deathblow when Lightning hears a soft 'wark.'

She doesn't startle. Her pulse doesn't jump. She doesn't shout out a warning. Her blade is up before she makes a conscious decision to move. Bladed Lance meets Edged Carbine in a clanging hail of sparks mere inches from the soft vulnerable flesh of Vanille's throat. The sparks light the entire hallway like a camera flash; they burst like fireworks. Sazh shouts, Vanille shrieks and Fang pales. The silence grows like a balloon until it explodes into a rush of heaving sighs and muttered curses.

The Tyrant uses the distraction to attack them from behind.

"Look out!" Vanille shrieks. Lightning glances back, spots the looming beast as it readies the attack.

Lightning twists, plans to use her speed against the enormous foe, but her blade is still tangled with Fang's. Her fleet feet only manage to trip her up and throw off her sense of balance. She's off-kilter, weapon in a forehanded grip and therefore completely backwards and useless to her. She lets out a colorful curse and hears the whir and whistle of the disembodied Centaurion Blade overhead. She doesn't even try to get eyes on it; she knows she'll be dead before she can move her head. She releases her irritation and fear and summons all her strength, training and instinct.

She twists her wrist and spins her blade around Fang's. The move screws up Fang's center of gravity, forces a reposition of feet for purchase. Lightning doesn't let her get it. She brings her back leg around in a leg sweep, takes Fang's feet from beneath her to send her sprawling, then uses the leverage of her crouched position to propel herself into Sazh and Vanille. She takes them down as the conjured blade slices the air above the four companions' heads with a whistle and breeze. The entire maneuver takes less than two seconds to complete.

The pointed tip of Vanille's Tigerclaw digs at Lightning's ribs; Vanille's knobby shoulder grates into Lightning's hipbone. She ignores the discomfort, tightens her grip on her Edged Carbine and springs back to her feet. The Centaurion Blade twirls overhead, takes another swipe at her. She back flips in time to avoid the hit, brings her Edged Carbine up to clang off the Blade that is buried one foot into the stone of the cavern floor mere inches from where Vanille lays. Sazh drags Vanille back as Lighting adjusts her stance, gets a two handed grip on her weapon and swings with all her might. The Centaurion Blade fractures but doesn't shatter. It pulls free from the floor and floats up toward the ceiling, readying itself for another attack.

"Look out!" Fang yells.

Lightning goes numb for a moment as she realizes that she's made a terrible error. In her concentrated effort to destroy the Blade, she's forgotten the larger and more dangerous enemy. She casts a wary glance over her shoulder. The Tyrant has it's weapon aloft, ready to deliver the coup de grace. She looks back at the Centaurion Blade hemming her in. Her position is pinned down; she's surrounded and screwed. She can't see a way through the impromptu trap.

"You looking for me?" Fang yells as she strikes out at the Tyrant's back leg. The creature pauses mid-swing and looks behind it to find the nuisance. "Get the hell out of there you crazy bitch!" Fang braces herself up with her magic and strength, prepares to take the Tyrant's hit.

Unacceptable.

Lightning makes a decision. She uses her power to get some decent speed up as she runs toward the cave wall. She jumps, kicks off the wall with her (mutated) left foot, catches some air, hits the opposite side with her other foot to go higher, twirls mid-air to stick a hard landing on the Tyrant's back.

The monster shifts beneath her as she fights for balance. She braces and strikes the back of the Tyrant's neck with her Edged Carbine, switches to gun mode and fires repeated shots at the armored skull. The bullets do nothing but harass the Tyrant; it bucks in irritation. She adjusts her stance, thumbs the switch for the blade and holds it down to keep her center of gravity as low as possible; she needs all the stability she can get right now. The Centaurion Blade homes in on her, dances around her as a prelude to attack. She watches it for tells, holds her position in anticipation of the strike.

"Are you nuts, Soldier? Get out of the way!" Sazh shouts. She sneaks a peek out of the corner of her eye. He's got both guns drawn and trained on the Tyrant but he won't take a shot with her in the way. She musters her concentration and focuses it on the hovering Blade.

_Have faith, Sazh._

Fang continues her litany of provocations, shouting at and striking the Tyrant. Lightning can hear the anger and fear lacing Fang's voice. Fang is hopped up on adrenaline but she's too good a fighter to distract Lightning, even in her hormone soaked state. Lightning hears Fang grunt as her weapon clangs off the armored Tyrant. The monster bucks and Lightning stumbles, almost loses her footing on its back.

Almost.

The momentary loss of balance is all the distraction the Centaurion Blade needs. It falls at her with a relentless acceleration that puts gravity to shame. She watches it descend towards her, waits until she can imagine the keen edge against her skin, feels the breeze from its motion whip her hair...

"Look out!" Vanille squeaks.

...and she leaps, flips, hits the ground and rolls back to her feet, weapon aloft in a two handed overhead grip.

The Centaurion Blade strikes true, pierces the place she'd just been standing with all its might and buries itself to mid-blade right in the middle of the Tyrant's back. The Tyrant bucks and yells, the Centaurion Blade shivers and shimmies, tries to extricate itself from its prison. The Tyrant's back legs give out and the conjured Blade finally disappears as the magic that had forged it collapses. Everything is still for a moment.

"NOW!" Lightning shouts.

Everyone shifts their focus from defense to attack. Sazh unloads his weapons at the Tyrant. Vanille hurls every nasty spell she's learned over the long weeks. Fang wails on the downed Tyrant with all her considerable strength. Lightning switches to gun mode and unloads the Edged Carbine at the prostrate beast. She can feel the thrum of victory pounding through her. Can taste the triumph...

The Tyrant finds its feet again, stomps and roars once before somehow conjuring another Centaurion Blade. And another.

...Too soon it seems.

"Oh no!" Vanille shrieks.

"This is ridiculous!" Sazh says. "Now what do we do?" He continues firing his weapons at the Tyrant. He might as well be spitting at the armored nightmare for all the damage he's doing.

Lightning's mind races. She hadn't believed that the Tyrant would be able to recover from such a grievous injury. She's made the unforgivable error of underestimating her enemy. She has no idea how the hell they're going to survive this mess.

"We have to retreat!" Fang yells. "We can't beat this thing." The Tyrant swipes at her, catches her a glancing blow that sends her sailing into the cave wall. Fang grunts at the impact but doesn't falter. She's got her guard back up in time to block the next blow. "You three get out of here." Fang hits her knees under the impact of the Tyrant's blade. Lightning can see her arms trembling as she holds the Tyrant's sword off by force of might alone. The monster is relentless in its attack on her. Another hit like that will be all it takes.

Get out of here? Lose another comrade? Another sister?

_Like hell._

Lightning whispers to Sazh and Vanille, "You heard the lady." She doesn't even look at them to see if they've listened to her, although if she were a betting woman (she isn't) she'd put everything she owns (one Edged Carbine and one tattered uniform) that they haven't.

Fang's sweating and bleeding on the floor as the Tyrant raises its weapon to hit her again. She's got her guard up, but she's not going to last much longer. Lightning can smell the magic swirling in the air, the healing magic mixing with the fire, ice and thunder magic.

Thunder?

_Odin! _She lets her need fill her and the Eidolon appears with a roar. "Cut us a path!" She yells. Odin hurls a bolt of energy at the rearing Tyrant that sends it onto its hind quarters. Fang sags and pants, relieved at the cessation of attack. Lightning casts one concerned look to Fang before putting her from her mind. She's alive. That'll have to be enough for now.

Lightning charges in and lays into the Tyrant's exposed underbelly as Odin does the same. She and Odin move in perfect tandem. The Eidolon attacks as she regroups, it heals her as she drives her blade into the Pulsian monster's gut. The world disappears. She has no thought for her friends or her mission.

Everything boils down to the pound of her heart, the firing of adrenaline, the tensing of muscles and the relentless assault that she and her Eidolon unleash upon this monster. Her head buzzes. She feels her brand burning but, for once, she doesn't care. She's too intoxicated with the surging bloodlust, too euphoric from the narcotic effect of the mounting violence within and without.

Odin and she attack over and over. She wishes this monster bled. She wants to bathe herself in its blood, revel in the vicious victory. Another powerful thunder spell raises the hairs on her arms. Sparks and smoke pour out of the Tyrant, scents mixing with the sharp tang of ozone. She spots the newly created chink in the armor, drives the point of her sword into it. She feels her magic build within her and she funnels it through the blade into the downed creature. She feels it buck once. Twice. A third time before it stills.

Lightning's skin crawls in the still aftermath of battle. A bead of sweat tracks from her hairline over her cheekbone, drips down her neck, over her clavicle to disappear into her cleavage. She heaves a hard breath. She tingles and itches. She burns. She withdraws her Edged Carbine and turns around to face her friends.

She sees Odin instead, calm and still where she's anxious and twitchy. It places a hand on her head, her face and it's just so...cool. Soothing. She closes her eyes and relaxes into the cold of the touch. She wants to disappear into the embrace of this cold monster; she wonders if it would extinguish the fever ravaging her body. She places her hand over the giant's fingers, squeezes. This thing that is a blessing and burden. It is the only thing she understands, that understands her anymore.

The Eidolon disappears and she sways on her feet, disoriented and bereft. She finds herself longing for its touch, longing to disappear with it into the abyss. "Until next time," she whispers. She opens her eyes, sniffs, shakes her head to clear the cobwebs and turns to find her friends.

Fang still kneels on the floor, blood running into her eyes from a nasty forehead gash. Vanille is fluttering around Fang like a nervous hummingbird, hands brushing and erasing bruises everywhere they light. Sazh stares at Lightning, eyes wide, mouth open and contorted into an unmistakable expression. Fear. The look bothers and satisfies her at once. She refuses to examine that paradox.

"Everyone alright," she says. Perhaps growls is more accurate, but she can continue living in denial a bit longer.

"Yeah, but uh... I think we should be asking you that question, Soldier," Sazh says, voice steady and even. His composure is impressive; his poker face is terrible.

Is she alright? Her muscles are twitching from the combination of exertion, fear and adrenaline. Her head throbs from the potent cocktail; her body burns in throes of some magical metamorphosis. There is an urge building in her; an itch growing at alarming rates. Her skin tingles and her jaw clenches so hard that her teeth creak. Her fingernails bite into her palms in their eagerness to gouge flesh. Any flesh. She feels powerful and destructive, like the element for which she is named. For which she has named herself: lightning.

No. She is **not** alright. She's not sure that she's ever been farther from alright than she is in this moment.

She turns and walks, unable to look her friends in the eye any longer. She fears what she might do in this compromised state. She hears Sazh say, "Hey, wait up Soldier," and then a fierce whisper cut him off. The voice is too low, the words too muffled but she knows that it's Fang. Since she can't hear footsteps pursuing her, Lightning figures Fang told Sazh to back off and give her a minute.

Thank god for Fang!

Lightning moves until she's out of earshot. Then she continues walking for another minute until she's surrounded by pure, silent, icy darkness. _Alone at last._ She exhales a shaky breath and sits cross-legged on the cold stone floor. Her body still burns too hot for any human and the cold seeping from the floor through her shorts is almost a relief.

Almost.

She presses her back to the wall, feels the jagged rocks behind her dig into her right shoulder blade. She leans back even harder, nudging past uncomfortable until the feeling is just shy of painful. She concentrates on that sting, aggravates it until it becomes a small throbbing knot of agony. Pain gives her an outlet. A focus. Something to think about other than this unnatural riptide that threatens to engulf her. She cracks her head into the wall hard enough to scramble her brains a bit. Her ears ring from the blow and her head pounds. She smiles. And she waits.

Waits for her heart to slow down and for the red veil across her vision to fade. She waits for the roar in her ears to quiet back into a negligible din. She waits until she can unfurl her fingers from the stock of her gunblade without fear of what else they might grab a hold onto and **clutch**. Waits for the strange pangs to pass. Waits for the muscles in her body to stop trembling and rippling with potential energy.

She waits to feel human again.

_Gonna be waiting forever for that one._

She closes her eyes against the darkness. Exhales. And waits.

"All better now?"

She keeps her eyes shut but the irritating glow of torchlight seeps through her eyelids. Fang's knees crack as she kneels and sits. Lightning is surprised that she's never noticed this trait before. The sound reminds her of her own damaged shoulder, crackling and snapping after long hours of abuse. That Fang has suffered similar permanent injuries shouldn't really be a shock. The woman is, after all, a warrior. No warrior remains whole and untouched by the trials of their battles.

Her thoughts drift to Snow. What battle scars does he still carry? What new ones might he bear when he meets Serah again? Will Hope have to live with permanent damage when this nightmare has ended? The idea causes guilt-fueled grief to well.

She shakes her head to dispel the thoughts. She can't get bogged down in the what ifs and whys right now. She has no time to indulge despair. What difference does it make? They are all damaged goods now, branded, hunted and mutated. Soon they we all be monsters.

She's thankful she won't be around to see her friends devolve.

She opens her eyes and squints. The torchlight surprises her in its offensive intensity. She shields her eyes for a moment, glances at Fang through slotted eyes. There is dried blood caked around a nasty looking scar on her head. Half her face is vivid purple. There is pain inscribed into every feature of her face: her mouth is pinched and drawn, her eyes hooded, her forehead furrowed.

But she's alive and in one piece. Lightning counts it as a huge win.

"Well?" Fang asks.

It takes Lightning a few seconds to play catch up. She spends too much time in her own head these days. Soon she's not going to have the luxury of conversation and human interaction. She's going to be a grunting, mindless monster. She might as well enjoy the company of her friends for now. She looks at Fang, notes the expectant look on her face. Oh yeah. Fang had asked her a question. She considers it for a moment.

_Is she better?_

"Almost," she replies. Her heart is no longer pounding in her ears. She's no longer flushed with bloodlust and rage. She releases her grip on her weapon, feels her knuckles creak and protest. She glances at the palms of her hands, sees the rivulets of blood beading from the crescent fingernail punctures. This damage is no surprise. She needs to know if there is more. She can't trust that she's conscious of everything that has taken place any longer. "So, did I do something particularly scary again?"

Fang looks confused. Lightning wonders if it's a ruse before deciding that the other woman is too injured to bother with subterfuge. "Not sure what you mean," she admits.

"You know," Lightning prompts. "Did I sprout horns or a tail?"

Fang snorts a laugh. At least she appreciates Lightning's gallows humor. "Nope. Nothing like that."

_Good to know._ She hadn't actually been too concerned over physical mutations, though after the previous revelation-her gray Cie'th skin-she can't be dismissive. Still, the physical is really the least of her concern. She's turning into a monster from the inside out, after all. Her actions are far more worrying than her appearance. "Anything else particularly frightening?"

Fang looks perturbed and amused at once. It's a strange combination. "You mean other than destroying that monster single handedly? You know, the one I thought was going to kill us all and pick its teeth with our bones. Might that qualify?"

"Maybe," Lightning quips. Sarcasm. It's not really Lightning's favorite form of communication but it is a defense mechanism that she understands. (She likes gallows humor. Fang enjoys sarcasm.) She refuses to be deterred. "But I don't really see that as a good enough reason for Sazh to look at me like he's afraid I might eat his spleen."

"Oh, I don't know about all that now. I'm thinking that might be a bit of an exaggeration. I think it's more...shock than anything else," Fang says. She stretches her legs in front of her, leans back against the wall. She looks as at ease as one sitting in an armchair reading a book. It's confusing and reassuring at once. "I mean, I'm pretty sure we all expected to die back there. At least once. You can't really blame the man for looking a little spooked after all that, can you?"

She supposes Fang's right. Still. "It looked like more than that."

Fang heaves a hard sigh. "Well, you'll have to ask him then. I didn't really take the time to chat him up about his feelings." Fang reaches into her pack and pulls out a very familiar flask and a painkiller. She pops the painkiller and chases it with a hefty pull from the flask. Lightning winces, remembering the taste of that awful swill. Fang heaves a contended "ah" before capping her flask and pocketing it. She looks at Lightning and says, "I, for one, am too grateful to feel much else about what went on earlier. The grim reaper grabbed me by both arms and shook, you know? So, I'll take the aches and fantastic bruising. All things considered, that's not so bad."

"You're really not afraid of me?" The words are out of her mouth before her brain can filter them. She's not a coward, but she's also not sure she's ready for that little truth just yet. Life just keeps throwing punches at her and she needs a few minutes to regroup before she takes this particular gut shot.

Too late now. She waits.

"Well," Fang starts. "Your little 'army of one' act is pretty intimidating, I must say. But if I'm going to be honest. No. You don't scare me. Sorry to disappoint you. I know how much you appreciate everyone quaking in their boots around you."

Lightning feels an immense relief. Then she feels a bit offended. She realizes that's exactly the reaction Fang had been going for and wonders when this strange woman got to know her so damn well.

"Why? Are you afraid of you?" Fang asks. And there's the real question. Is she afraid of herself? She knows she should be, that's for sure. But is she?

_No. _"Sometimes." _Not enough. Not anymore. Not nearly as much as I should be. _"Less now than I used to be."

Fang nods. "Think that's a good thing then?"

"Really kind of doubt it." How does she explain this? "I'm thinking that if the day comes when I'm not afraid at all of what's happening to me...that's going to be a pretty bad day. I'm thinking...you're running out of time."

Fang narrows her eyes and tilts her head. "Think so, huh?"

"Yeah. I do. I think that, all things considered," and by all things she means her growing powers and bloodlust, "it's going to be a pretty bad thing if you decide to wait until I fight you." And there it is. Her real fear. She's terrified that Fang is going to wait just that little bit too long. That she's going to continue to deny the transformation until Lightning is no longer herself.

And then...well, who knows exactly what Lightning will do to her companions if they try to put her down like a rabid animal?

"You're not as tough as you think you are," Fang snipes. The words startle Lightning from her dark musings. Lightning remembers the last time Fang spoke those words. Back in Vallis Media. A lifetime ago. Lightning had such an urge to kick the crap out of Fang for her condescension. Now, she's just amused.

"Maybe not." She hopes Fang is right. For all their sakes. "I hope not. But, I'm afraid that it's coming soon and you're not taking it seriously."

Fang gives Lightning a long assessing look. "Nah," and Lightning wants to hit her for joking right now. "I'm taking it plenty seriously. I just happen to think you're a stubborn bitch, just like me. And I think you're going to fight this damn thing as long and as hard as you have to. Until it kills you, if it comes to that. Because the day you stop fighting. That's the day they win." She stands up, hovers over Lightning with hands on her hips and glares across the tip of her nose at her. "And I'm pretty sure that you hate the idea of them winning just as much as I do." Fang gives her a pointed look. "You don't want them winning, do ya?"

There's no doubt to whom Fang's referring. The fal'Cie! Those twisted bastards that ruined her life (all their lives!); that stole her sister and murdered Hope's mother. That chased them all from their homes and sent them running like convicts. Like prey. Those monsters that forged her in their likeness. That did everything they could to strip her of her humanity and make of her a tool for their purposes. A weapon for them to wield against humans!

Fang's right! She has no intention of letting those damned smug bastards win! The weight that's been pressing on Lightning's chest and shoulders eases. "Hell no." She's not going to surrender to this nightmare. Not willingly. If her destiny is to become a weapon, then she's determined to take aim at the heart of the fal'Cie and rip them all the pieces.

But first things first. She nods at Fang, holds out her hand and Fang hoists her to her feet and claps her on her shoulder. "Let's go find Snow and Hope."

* * *

TBC...

Okay, so I'd really intended to go back to Snow and Hope in this chapter, but I just couldn't let go of Lightning and Fang. I also hadn't intended to ignore Vanille and Sazh and their appearance. I was planning on taking this chapter a little further into the adventure, have a happy little reunion for these four. But, Lightning is just so morose. She needed a bit of a pep talk.

As for the torture in this chapter. Squassation and the Strappado were used as torture for witches. They were brutal and horrifying. *My research actually makes me cringe* Burial alive was another method of purging the evil from witches. I didn't actually describe the torture because I can barely look at the pictures. (I don't write torture to titillate.)

Anyway, I'm looking forward to hearing from you. I hope you haven't lost interest because I've lost a bit of momentum. I'm still plugging away here.


	18. Interlude III:Snow and Hope pt 2

Hello. 12000 + hits and 150+ reviews. Thank you to all who are reading and especially to those who review. You guys are great and I love hearing from you.

This chapter is unbelievably long. It's actually 20 pages (and that's after I've sliced and diced.) I just didn't want to continue Snow and Hope's adventure into a third part, and I needed to get them where they end up at the end of this chapter.

Without further ado...

* * *

"Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves."  
**Henry David Thoreau **

Interlude III: The Saga of Snow and Hope  
Part II

_He's on the catwalk again. The metal is cold and hard beneath his legs. He can feel the heat from the explosions on his face. His ears ring with the screams of the dying. There is a loud voice booming from above, speaking about sacrifice and safety. Wishing them a safe journey to their new home on Gran Pulse. His sleeve has a large, drying bloodstain on it from one of the 'migrants' from Bodhum. His heart pounds fast and hard against his ribcage. _

_He looks around, sees Snow standing before him, larger than life; intimidating and hulking, smirking and haloed by firelight and smoke. Hope knows Snow is full of crap the minute he claps eyes on him, but somehow the big man instills a sense of security amidst the chaos. He is reassuring in his total confidence in himself and his cause. Snow winks, turns, and walks away. Puts his arm around her this time after she takes the rifle from him._

Mom_, he thinks. _**Mom**_, he yells; or tries to yell, anyway. His fear has stolen his voice. He knows what's going to happen here. Knows. He can't watch it again. Not ever. He had been too terrified to do anything the first time. He'd just sat there in his bloodied robe and waited for rescue or death. He isn't sure he'd even had a preference. Any end to the terror would have been a relief. But he'd learned that there are far worse things than terror. He'd learned that day the price of inaction; the incredibly high cost of cowardice. He'll never cower in the corner again. She's here and alive and he can save her! He must save her. She is all he has in the whole world and she's about to die again. He runs as hard as he can after the disappearing vision of his mother and Snow. If he can just catch her, maybe he can stop it this time. Stop her death. Stop the whole, horrid chain of events._

_The catwalk explodes and he flies backwards. He hits the ground and knows he should be hurt. Maybe even dead. He feels no pain as he sits up. He keeps his eyelids clenched against the bright, hot firelight. He's terrified that if he opens his eyes, he will be forced to watch his mother die again. Watch her slip from Snow's grip and disappear into the great beyond._

_He opens his eyes but the catwalks are gone. The fire is gone. There are no soldiers and there's no death. The Hanging Edge and the Resistance fighters are gone. Snow is gone. He's on Lake Bresha now, though how he's gotten here he doesn't know. Lake Bresha was far below, and more than a day of journeying from, the catwalks. He'd had to travel through death and beyond, face a fal'Cie and win, become a l'Cie, hunted and hated before he'd made it here. Maybe things will be different now. He stands and looks for his mother or Snow._

_Sees Lightning's resolute retreating form instead. _

_Light! He chases her over the slick crystal. His feet slip and slide and he ends up on hands and knees several times. He moves as fast as he can, but for every step he takes, she takes two and she disappears from view in moments. He falls to his knees in despair. She'd promised him that she wouldn't abandon him. With his mother gone, she is all he has. And now she's gone and he can't find her._

She's dead, kid. _Snow's voice whispers in his ear. _

_He whips around, looking for the big man. There's no one there. _

Failed, _the voice whispers._

_Hope feels his temples throb with rage. He wants to hit Snow. Snow killed his mother, and now, he's lying about Lightning. He's keeping him from her. Lightning isn't dead! Snow underestimates Lightning all the time. He thinks she's weak, but she's ten times stronger than Snow. Hope will find her! Or she'll come for him. He opens his mouth to shout his denial. To curse Snow for being a lying coward._

_The ground shifts with a loud thud and crack. The sound is like wood splintering and glass shattering at once. The ground rumbles again and almost sends Hope onto his face. He looks down and sees the crystal beneath his feet fracturing like thin ice breaking under too much weight. He looks up and around, desperate to find an escape. He doesn't want to plunge into the stasis of the lake and end up like a specimen in a lab jar. He doesn't want to be a monster or a crystal. He just wants to go home!_

_He tries to run, but the ground disintegrates beneath him and he falls..._

_...Falls through darkness into frigid cold. Into perfect pitch. He lays there for a moment wishing for light, terrified of what waits in the darkness. He doesn't want to look but he's more terrified of not seeing the threat before it strikes. He wills the light and it appears. The darkness abates as he rises again. He peers into void and finds nothing._

_No one._

_He is alone and terrified. He drops to his knees, covers his face with his hands and weeps. Feels something sticky and looks at his hands._

_They are trembling, soaked in gore to his elbows. He gasps, pulls them away and finds that he is clutching Lightning's dagger. He'd returned it to her back in Palumpolum, hadn't he? He is so glad it's here. It's proof of her love. A token of her devotion. Proof of her existence. She will come for him, and until she does, he can protect himself. He closes his eyes in relief, opens them again. The blade is coated in blood now and he drops it, watches it fall to the floor, bounce, and clatter again. He gropes after it _/Lightning will be so mad/_ but his fingers find flesh instead of metal. He opens his eyes _(when had he closed them?)_, terrified of what he might find._

_Snow's blue eyes are milky, glazed over in death. Lightning's knife is embedded in his chest to the hilt. _

No no no no no no no!_ He shakes his head, reaches for the knife. He needs to take this back! He doesn't want this! Snow can't be dead. Hope had saved him! How did this happen now? _Please, please don't die! _he begs the man. The corpse. He wraps his fingers around the cold metal of the hilt. He can fix Snow. He knows that he can. He's yanked him back from the brink before, he can yank him back across it now. He just has to get the knife out of Snow's heart. He braces himself for the gushing fountain of blood and the agonizing scream. It's too familiar. _

/He's not dead! Please don't let him die./

_Snow's icy hand covers his as he grabs the knife. Hope screams, feels his whole body go cold and clammy with terror. He shakes his head, tries to pull his hand out from beneath the frigid dead one. But Snow is too strong, even in death. __He looks back at Snow's face. Into his still dead eyes. The blue lips move, whisper._

_'It's okay, kid. It's what I deserve.'_

* * *

No!

Hope bolts upright too quickly. The scream dies in his throat, but the horror forces a trembling shiver. He's soaked with sweat and his heart pounds so hard and fast, Hope thinks he may be having a heart attack. _(Can fourteen year olds have heart attacks?)_ His head spins and he sways back into the stone wall, hits his head with an audible thwap against the cold rock. The impact rings his bell, turns the dull ache into a bright, brief pain that drags him fully conscious.

He rubs at the lump on his head and wishes he had the energy to heal the knot now. He considers it for a moment before deciding that he's just too weary. He breathes through the discomfort, tries to quell the panic of his dreams by focusing on the horrors of his reality. His heart pounds hard and furious in his chest and behind his eyes. He feels an acidic nausea grab hold of him.

Another nightmare. Or rather, a new flavor of the same nightmare. He's been having variations of this particular dream for weeks now. Usually, he is forced to watch his mother die. Sometimes, he's the one who drops her: he stares into her panicked eyes as she falls from the catwalk to her death. Sometimes it's Lightning instead, slipping through his fingers like water through a sieve. Once it was Vanille. Sometimes Snow dies too, but mostly he just disappears before Hope can accuse him. Occasionally he'll turn to crystal as Hope tries to hit him, robbing Hope of any satisfaction. Leaving him impotent in his rage.

That dream in all its variations is both sickening and heartbreaking, because for one shining moment, Hope has his mother again. He can feel the warmth of her fingers as she holds his hand and cards through his hair; he can hear her voice as she offers comfort. He can feel the silk of her hair and smell her perfume as she holds him. Hope doesn't want the dream to end even as he knows it will. No, as he knows it **must**. And despite that knowledge, Hope feels at peace because he has a place in the world again. He has a home.

And then he watches her die and he has to start mourning her all over again. The grief upon waking is as fresh as if his mother had just died.

Hope rubs at his aching head, runs fingers over the lump and winces. He wants to forget about the dream. He wishes it would disappear into the subconscious abyss as is the nature of dreams. But this one is different. This one remains fresh in his memory, keeping the wound raw and grief fresh. There is a tearing pain in his chest that hollows him out. He has to bite his tongue to hold in the building sob. He feels the tears overflowing, escaping down his cheeks before he sniffs hard, grits his teeth and wipes his face. He's tired of this pain. Shouldn't it have faded a bit by now? Shouldn't the dreams fade, at least?

He supposes that talking about it might help, but he's not sure how. He can't bring himself to tell anyone about the dreams. They're too much to think about most days, so speaking about them is out of the question. He isn't even sure what he would say. Dreaming about his mother dying, while horrible, isn't exactly shocking. As Sazh had said to Lightning, it's pretty understandable, all things considered.

The thing is, that as awful as it is to watch, her death isn't the hardest part of the dream. It's the waking up, and facing the loss all over again, feeling her absence again like the loss of a limb, that makes it unbearable.

Oh, he'd considered telling Light a few times, but she looked like she was barely hanging on herself lately. He hadn't wanted to add to her stress and strain. He can tell that she's worried about him (though what is causing that worry is a mystery); he can see that she's not sleeping anymore. A few times he'd wondered if opening up to her about his dreams might prompt her to reciprocate. Maybe they could help each other.

Yeah, he'd considered it. Then dismissed the idea as insane. Lightning isn't big with sharing. He'll talk, she'll clam up and just withdraw even further into herself. So telling Lightning anything is out of the question.

He'd thought about unburdening himself with Vanille. She's sweet and caring. And most importantly, she listens to Hope. She doesn't treat him like some frail little kid to be protected and he won't risk doing anything that might change the way she views or treats him. He doesn't ever want Vanille to look at him like he's some fragile child to coddle. He's worked too hard to get her to look at him like a man. He won't blubber on Vanille's shoulder and lose the small shreds of respect that she might feel for him.

That's when he'd considered going to Sazh. But after he'd told everyone about forgetting about Dajh, it had just seemed too cruel to burden him anymore. Sazh would understand Hope's impotent grief, but Hope couldn't bring himself to heap more misery on the already grieving father.

So it would seem that Hope is still as much a coward today as he was all those weeks ago on the catwalks of the Hanging Edge. He's no more willing to step up now than he was then and he doesn't want his friends to know that he is an undercover coward; a boy pretending to be a man. He doesn't want them to look at him like he's a burden again. Like he's just some kid that they all have to protect.

And he doesn't want to hurt any of them anymore.

Hope knows that the one he's hurt the most is his current companion. Snow. Hope has said and done some terrible things to Snow in the name of revenge. The worst part is, Snow's let him. More than that, he's forgiven him. Forgiven him some huge transgressions in the name of a misplaced guilt.

Hope knows that Snow blames himself for his mother's death. Snow apologized to him that long ago day in Palumpolum. Hope hasn't really blamed Snow since that day, despite his dreams. Snow apologized, offered to accept any punishment Hope delivered. He'd accepted blame and responsibility for Nora's death and, in that moment, Hope knew the truth.

His mother had died willingly that day.

Sure, she'd died protecting Snow. In a way. But really, she'd died fighting for Hope: so he could live and get home. If Hope wanted to blame someone for his mother's death, he need only look in the mirror. But she would never want him to do such a thing, and to trivialize her death would do her a disservice. She'd taken up arms that day because the alternative was to sit and wait for death at the end of a Sanctum gun or blade. She'd seen the truth and she chose to be brave and fearless to protect herself and her child. She'd never been a warrior. She'd never, to his knowledge, handled a weapon before that day. Yet she decided to fight. And instead of being proud of her bravery and her sacrifice, he'd been so angry.

He guesses that's probably what drew him to Lightning. She'd been as full of rage as he when they'd met, and just as bent on revenge. He'd followed her example and used that rage to give him the strength to carry on when all he'd wanted was to die too. And Snow had been such a convenient target-for both of them. But it was a lie. Lightning had tried to explain that to him in the tunnels under Palumpolum as she'd destroyed his plans for vengeance by ending Operation Nora. She'd tried to explain the empty futility of their quest and their shared desire for vengeance, but he hadn't wanted to hear her. He'd needed his anger then. And he'd held onto it and cultivated it until he saw his chance.

And then the strangest thing happened. Against all sense and reason, Snow saved his life. Hope had murder on his mind and in his heart. He'd had both will and intent. He had the weapon. He'd had Snow right where he wanted him: at his mercy and beneath his blade. But he'd gotten sloppy in his victory and got blasted clean off that ledge in Palumpolum. Lightning had tried to warn him. She'd told him that their warpath to vengeance was wrong. That no good would come from it. She'd been trying so hard to explain the truth to him. That the only real victims of their vengeance would be themselves. And as it turns out, she was right. (Not the first or last time.) His anger and the quest for vengeance should have killed him. And it would have, if Snow hadn't jumped after him and saved him. If he hadn't risked his own life to save Hope's.

And then. Then he offered his life as restitution for Nora's death.

Hope sighs. That particular memory still stings almost as much as the dream itself. Watching the larger than life Hero gasp for breath and beg for forgiveness. He hadn't believed Snow capable of humility. (Hell, he never really gave humility much thought at all. It wasn't a concept for which he'd had any use in his day to day existence.) But Snow's obvious grief and remorse popped all Hope's inflated hatred with the efficiency of a pin pressed to a Mylar balloon. He had realized then that revenge was pointless. His mother would still be dead; his heart would still be broken. His home would still be destroyed. All Hope had to gain by killing Snow was blood on his hands.

Hope had no desire to become a murderer.

Weeks of travelling with Snow since then had proven to Hope that he'd made the right choice. Snow may be a blow-hard at times _(a really, really lot)_, but he's a kind and decent person. Hope is proud to call him friend. And family.

So having a dream now, all these long weeks later, about killing Snow...that really upsets him. A lot.

"You okay?" The voice startles him from his thoughts. He feels guilty for wallowing in his misery. Indulging dark thoughts and memories in dark places is foolish, he knows. It leads to nothing good. Hope shivers and shakes his head. "Kid?" He closes his eyes, hears Snow move in the darkness. "What's wrong?"

_What isn't?_

"N-nothing," Hope lies. He needs to pull himself together. All this worrying about dreams and feelings is ridiculous nonsense. He needs to 'man up' here. He and Snow are facing too many real dangers; they don't have time to deal with nightmares or his reopened emotional scars. Snow almost **actually** died a few hours ago. The horror of his nightmares seem pointless when compared to that reality.

"Kid," Snow exhales. "Whatever it is, you can tell me. You know that, right?" Hope opens his eyes, finds the dim orange glow of torchlight comforting. Snow kneels down to look him in the eyes.

Tell him what? That he's dreaming about killing him? Yeah. That'll go over real well.

"I-I know." He does. He knows that Snow will listen to whatever he has to say; will let Hope vent all his fears and concerns even if they are stupid and childish. He'll even let him spew vitriol and blame if it'll make Hope feel better. _Not going to happen. _"But it's nothing."

Snow's mouth pinches into a frown but he nods anyway. "Alright then." He stands back up, pulls the torch from the wall sconce. "We need to get moving soon. I don't like sitting in one place too long."

Hope nods and uses the wall to lever himself up off the floor. His head spins once, hard enough to unbalance him. Snow grabs his elbow. "Hey, hey. Easy there." Snow waits for him to find his balance before letting go of his arm. Snow's hand still hovers near, ready to grab him again if he stumbles.

"I'm alright," Hope lies.

"Yeah, kid. You're great!" Snow ruffles his hair, brushing against the bump on his head. Pain flares at the light touch and Hope can't hide his wince. Snow harrumphs, (like he'd known all along) and nudges Hope's chin up, brings the torch closer to peer into his eyes. The situation is too bizarre to even react. A concerned Snow is not unusual, but he usually yells and gnashes his teeth. Maybe punches his own hand and threatens. But looking for signs of a concussion?

_Awkward._

"You gave yourself a nasty bump on the head. No concussion though." He drops his hand and steps back. "Wanna tell me what you were dreaming about that you thought braining yourself might be the answer? You almost jumped clear out of your skin."

"Um. I don't remember," Hope lies absently. He's too busy thinking about the fact that Snow had already known that he'd whacked his head before he ruffled Hope's hair and bumped into the sore, aching lump. He's equal parts impressed and annoyed for a moment before the seesaw tips. Then he's just angry.

_What a jerk!_

Snow narrows his eyes at him, pulls a face that just shouts **liar** at Hope, before he shrugs. "Okay then. If that's the way you want to play this..."

_Huh? Wait a minute._ "I'm not playing," he snaps, affronted. It doesn't really matter that Snow has a point and that Hope **is** lying through his teeth. Everyone else is allowed to keep their secrets! Who the hell does Snow think he is, calling Hope out like that?

Snow holds up both hands in surrender. "Okay. If you say so, kid." The condescension is apparent in Snow's tone. He's actually mocking Hope! Right to his face. He wouldn't disrespect Lightning like that! Hope's face and ears burn.

"Stop calling me 'kid.'"

Snow smirks, just riling Hope further. "Okay," pauses and says, "Oh wait. No, that's not happening." Snow turns around and starts walking. "Too bad. You'll just have to deal with it. Kid."

Hope marches after him, hands curling into fists at his sides. What had he been thinking earlier? Had he actually thought that he liked Snow? What the hell is wrong with him? Maybe he'd given himself a concussion after all! That had to be it.

"Wait up, would ya?" Hope spits as he chases after Snow. The big man slows up and turns, waits for Hope to catch up to him. Hope scowls at Snow as he approaches him; Snow's smirk just widens into a full toothed grin. Hope feels his top lip curl in response. He has a sudden irrational urge to punch Snow right in his stupid face.

Snow chuckles at him, claps him on the shoulder once. "Here ya go!" Snow shoves the torch at Hope. "Hold that."

"Woah." Hope gropes for the torch, shocked and a bit nervous that it might slip out of his butter fingers and set him on fire. Snow has already turned away from him by the time he gets a firm grip around the torch. He huffs once and snarls at Snow's back. "Gee, thanks for the warning."

"Anytime, kid." Snow mutters. Hope sneers at him, opens his mouth to snap at him when Snow goes rigid and peers into the unrelenting dark of the cavern. Hope snaps his mouth shut, holds himself still. Snow keeps his eyes ahead, all traces of his previous humor gone. He seems distracted and tense, and Hope finds the change disconcerting. He shivers once and stares into the darkness, hoping to glean a hint of what's spooked Snow. They spend a long tense moment in silence. Hope's nerves tingle, his stomach flutters, and he has a sudden and overwhelming urge to pee.

When Snow steps forward into the darkness, Hope nearly yelps. The other man's odd behavior has Hope so wound up and strung out, that he nearly wets himself. "S-Snow? Where are we going?"

Snow doesn't stop moving or peering into the inky black of the upcoming corridor. "Well, I'm not really sure just now. But we can't stay here anymore." The answer is vague and ominous. Snow hasn't provided any real reason why they can't stay anymore. He's the one that said they should rest up and sit tight to begin with! It's obvious now that something has changed. Hope just wishes he knew what that might be.

Before Hope has a chance to ask him, Snow continues: "Since this is the only direction that's open, it looks like we're going this way." He gestures vaguely in front of him.

Hope nods even though this whole plan sounds like a terrible idea to him. He can't seem to control the icy panic spilling through him. They don't know where the hell they are, and they have no idea where they're going. Aren't they lost enough already? "I don't get it. Why don't we just stay put if we don't know where we're going."

"Oh, if only we could kid." Snow laments. "But do you see those scratches in the wall over there?" Snow points and Hope squints into the darkness to follow the line of sight.

"Um." _No._ "Maybe?" _Is he nuts? _

"Trust me." Hope really, really wants to trust Snow, but he seems to be seeing phantom markings in the pitch black. "We don't want to be here when whatever made those marks gets back."

Hope wishes he knew what Snow sees, but he does trust Snow enough not to question his instincts. If the other man thinks that they aren't safe here, then the odds are they aren't safe here anymore. "Okay."

Snow turns around and smirks at Hope. "The good news is we probably won't run into too many enemies around here." Snow says as he picks his way through the darkness.

_That is good news. Right?_ "Why not?"

"Well, because most everything gives the largest predators a very wide berth. Survival instinct, and all that jazz."

_Figures! _Hope snorts once. "Oh great!" Snow pauses to look back at him. "So, when you say we won't run into enemies, what you really mean is that we'll probably only have to deal with a really huge enemy that makes all the other monsters in this nightmare of a cave wet themselves? That **is** what you're saying right?"

Snow snickers. "Yep. That about sums it up."

"Great." He can't help the dry, sarcastic delivery. Hope's had it with this whole forsaken place. He thought they were going to Oerba and Vanille had told him that Oerba is a beautiful, seaside paradise full of flowers and colors! And little fluffy animals. (Alright, he made that part up. Vanille hadn't said anything about fluffy animals. But she had called it Paradise. With a capital 'P.') He glances around at the dank, dark cavern and shivers involuntarily.

_Paradise, my ass!_

"Don't worry, kid. We're going to do our best to avoid the big nasty bastard," Snow consoles. He pauses again, slides his right hand along the wall of the cavern. Puts his ear to the wall before nodding and moving forward.

"And how exactly are we going to do that?" Hope inquires. They don't have any idea where they are, where they're going, or what exactly waits for them in the darkness. How the hell does Snow plan to avoid it?

"By being careful and very quiet." Hope can infer the message from Snow's tone of voice: shut the hell up. He stiffens and blushes, but holds his tongue. If Snow had wanted him to be quiet, all he'd had to do was say so. _Jerk!_

Snow startles Hope from his snide internal monologue by freezing, spinning and pressing Hope against the wall. Hope gasps once before Snow presses a finger against his lips in the universal gesture for silence. Hope nods his understanding; Snow nods back, plucks the torch from his hand and extinguishes it. Hope gasps once more as the darkness descends, stealing the world in one quick movement. Snow wraps his left arm around Hope, drags him against his body and holds on.

Hope can hear the air flow through Snow's barrel chest, the steady, calm cadence of his heart. Snow's heart rate is even and slow, as if the man is immune to the icy terror creeping through Hope's entire body. It's equal parts comforting and annoying. Hope embraces the comforting for now; he figures he has plenty of time to be annoyed by Snow once whatever the hell this is, is over.

It's then that Hope hears it. Something scraping-loping-pattering against the stone of the floor. The wall behind his back vibrates and the floor shakes. Hope sucks in a hard breath and Snow's hand covers his mouth, presses him to the wall and presses his body flush to his side. Hope's ear is mashed against Snow's chest, giving him a firsthand account of Snow's rising panic.

Snow is now a wall between him and whatever enemy is walking past them in the darkness. Hope's heart stutters in his chest, hammers in his throat and temples. Snow's heart chugs away in his chest, harder and faster than before, but still way too relaxed in Hope's opinion. With one ear squashed against Snow's chest, and the other pressed to the rock wall, Hope has no way of hearing the monster in the darkness.

The absence of two senses only amps up his terror. Absolutely anything can happen and he won't know until he feels the pain.

And if he dies, he'll never know what hit him.

The thought sends tingles through Hope's body, lights up his innate instinct to flee. He struggles against the Snow's iron grip, desperate to put some distance between his body and his captor's. Snow just clutches him tighter, presses harder against him. A little more pressure, and Hope is going to merge with the cave wall on a molecular level. He quits struggling, reaches up and pries at the fingers over his mouth; he figures if he can't move, at least he should be allowed to breathe unhindered. Snow gets the message and moves his hand, but not before pressing one finger over Hope's lips in a (completely unnecessary, thank you very much) 'keep your mouth shut' gesture.

Hope nods his understanding. Snow moves his hand down to Hope's shoulder in what Hope assumes is supposed to be reassurance. He's pretty sure that Snow failed in that particular attempt. He exhales quietly through his mouth, closes his eyes and listens to Snow's heartbeat and respiration. The big man is barely breathing, the deep whooshing of earlier now shallow gulps. Well, Hope wanted proof of Snow's fear.

He'd always heard that you should be careful what you wish for.

The idea that Snow is afraid just increases Hope's own fear to the point that he worries that he may actually wet himself after all. He concentrates on his bladder and commands it to stop torturing him. He has enough problems right now! He really doesn't need his body rebelling and making him miserable. His bladder spasms in response to his commands, sends a tearing pain through him, and Hope would bend double if Snow weren't holding him so still against that wall. He's not sure if he wants to laugh or cry at the absurdity of the entire situation.

_Betrayed by a weak bladder! How humiliating!_

Hope has no idea how long they stay that way, bundled together and petrified, pressed against the wall. Long enough for his muscles to knot in anticipation and tension. Hope almost hopes the damn monster would attack them just to shatter the suspense and let Hope take a full breath of air.

And relieve himself, one way or the other!

Finally, after an eternity, Snow exhales. His muscles unknot and he steps away from Hope. Hope shivers once at the kiss of cold air against sweaty skin. Snow doesn't give him a chance to relax. He grabs Hope's right hand and puts it against the wall and presses one large hand between Hope's shoulder blades to urge him to walk forward. Hope moves with as much speed and stealth as his frigid and cramping body will allow. His bladder reminds him that he'd better take care of business soon if he'd like to keep his pants relatively unsoiled.

Snow presses down onto Hope's shoulder, shoving him onto hands and knees. Hope lets out a surprised grunt before biting his tongue hard enough to draw blood. Snow doesn't react at all, just urges Hope to turn right into a small crevice in the wall. Hope slips, his elbows give and he skids onto his face. He yelps and pushes himself back up onto his knees, rubs at the tender spot on his face. Snow shoves hard between Hope's shoulder blades. "Hey!" he gasps, falling forward onto his hands again.

"Move it, kid!" Snow bites out. "Now. Move it, Move it!" The urgent fear in Snow's tone has Hope moving. The ground shakes beneath his hands and knees and Hope realizes why Snow is so insistent. The monster has discovered them. Hope turns to look, can't see anything in the absolute darkness.

"Snow?"

"Keep going! Don't stop." Snow's voice sounds too far behind him. It takes a moment for Hope's brain to catch up and realize that Snow isn't following.

_No!_

Snow can't be serious. He can't really expect Hope to just leave him behind to face-whatever that monster is-by himself. Hope spins around and reaches until his fingers connect with Snow's leg. He gets a handful of Snow's pants and pulls, feels the fabric tense and tear under his fingers. "Snow. Get in here. There's room." Snow shakes him off and he reaches out again, wraps both hands around his calf. "Please. Please, Snow. Come on!"

Snow's calf tenses under his hands, and for one long second, Hope believes he will refuse. Something inside him breaks. "Don't leave me alone in this dark," he whispers. It's a cheap shot, he realizes. He's playing the 'kid' card; nudging at Snow's protective instinct.

Yeah, it's a cheap shot. But it works.

Snow's leg disappears from Hope's grasp and he chokes on the tears for a moment before he hears, "Get moving, kid." Snow's breath ghosts across Hope's face and Hope knows that Snow is coming with him. He doesn't hesitate. Doesn't give himself a chance to feel relieved. He turns and moves as fast as possible on his hands and knees. He hears the shuffle scratch of Snow crawling behind him followed by a bellow, and the ring of metal on stone behind him. "Go, Hope. Keep moving."

Snow's voice is tight but calm and Hope finds himself once again incredibly grateful that Snow believes his own Hero hype. The small offshoot cavern shakes again, then echoes deafeningly with the angry scream of the pursuing monster. "That's right, you big bitch! You just keep shouting! You got nothing."

"Um, Snow." Hope says, picking up the pace to keep time with his racing heart.

"Yeah, kid?"

"Do you really think that taunting the big giant monster is the best plan right now?" Hope asks. Snow belly laughs at him. Hope can picture the tears that always accompany that laugh in his friend's blue eyes. Usually, that laugh irritates the hell out of Hope and makes him itch to smack Snow. Right now, he can't help but grin at the sound. "I mean, I know I'm no Hero or anything..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Snow interrupts him. "Keep moving. Smart ass."

* * *

They reach another corridor a few minutes later. Hope shimmies out of the tiny tunnel and presses himself to the nearest wall. Snow wriggles his way free of the tight opening, grunting and cursing the whole way. Once free, he stands up, moves to the other side of the corridor.

"What do we do now?" Hope asks. He's not sure he really wants to know. He's sweating from the combination of stress and exertion. Now that he's stopped moving, the drying sweat only makes him shiver harder in the chilled air.

"I'm trying to decide if it's worth the risk to light the torch." Hope understands why Snow might be leery. They have no idea where they are or what their light might draw to them.

And yet, he just can't seem to care right now. "Light the torch, Snow. We need to see."

"Alright then. Here goes nothing." The fire is so bright after the absolute lack of light that Hope has to shield his eyes. He blinks tears out of his eyes, then looks around the cavern. Four walls, a ceiling. Rock everywhere.

"Wow! It's...a cave." Hope grumps. He closes his eyes to rub them. Then his bladder reminds him that if he doesn't deal with business right now, then it's going to deal with it, consent and cooperation be damned. Hope bolts upright heads down the hall.

"Hey! Where the hell are you going?"

"I'll be right back," Hope swears. He really hopes that Snow will give him a minute of privacy but honestly, he's in so much pain right now that he really doesn't care. At all.

Three minutes and a world of relief later, Hope makes his way back toward the torchlight. Snow's face is pinched and irritated, but all he says is, "Don't do that again. We don't know what's in this cave."

_I have some ideas... _"Well, we know what's not in the cave. That big giant..."

"Tyrant," Snow finishes. Hope's heart stutters and he chokes. An image of a twenty plus foot tall, thirty plus foot long monster with a giant sword fills his mind.

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh," Snow snarks. He presses the torch into Hope's hands again. "You carry this but stay behind me. Let's get moving." He's moving before he finishes his sentence.

Hope trails after Snow, annoyance blossoming in his chest. "What the hell was that back there?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about back in that cave. With the Tyrant. You shoved me into this hole and then stood there? What the hell is that about?"

Snow sighs hard. "I was covering your escape."

"You were going to stand there and let it kill you!"

Snow pulls up short. "No, kid. That was not the plan."

"Really?" Hope injects every ounce of sarcasm he can muster into that word. "You promised me..."

Snow rounds on him so quickly that Hope almost drops the torch and falls on his ass. "What do you think I was doing? I was keeping my word."

Snow's anger startles Hope. Then it pisses him off. "That's a load of crap!" Snow's nostrils flare and Hope deflates. "You can't leave me alone here. I..." He turns away, refusing to let Snow see the tears burning in his eyes.

The hand on his shoulder destroys his fortifications and facade. He feels like he might collapse under the weight of his grief and anger. That Snow would even consider sacrificing himself after Hope yanked him from the brink of death is too much to take. That he would do it, knowing it means leaving Hope alone in this cave-perhaps even on this world-is unforgivable. "I'm sorry, Hope. I wasn't thinking..."

_You never do!_ He doesn't say it, but it takes all his restraint. Snow uses the hand on his shoulder to turn him around. The sob that's been building in his chest rips its way out of him with the force of a grenade. His chest aches from the power of it. "Hey?" Snow whispers. "It's alright. I'm sorry, Hope. Don't be upset. Come on, kid. You know I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, right? I mean, that's why Sis calls me a dumb blond."

The next sob turns into a wobbly laugh. "You," (sniff), "really are," (shudder, sniff), "kind of dumb." Snow chuckles at that and Hope giggles.

"Yeah. That's great." Snow keeps his tone light and humored. He didn't take offense. "Thanks a lot." Snow lets go of his shoulder and turns around again. Now that his equilibrium is restored, Hope feels ready to move on. He sniffs, wipes his face with the back of his hand.

"Let's go," Hope mumbles. He peers into the darkness. The torchlight only illuminates a few paces around them, leaving them blind. "Maybe I should take point. I mean, if I'm holding the torch..."

"NO!" Snow snaps. "Absolutely not," he says a little quieter. "You stay close, but behind me, alright?"

Hope nods, but can't keep his irritation in check. "I'm not helpless. Or useless, you know? Light let me take point." _Once. A long time ago. But still..._

"I didn't say you were useless." Snow snaps. Hope feels bad about pushing Snow's buttons. He just can't seem to help himself right now. He can't seem to get his bitchy inner teenager under control right now. He just wants to lash out. "And I'm not Light!"

"No kidding," he mumbles under his breath and against his better instincts. Snow stops walking and Hope almost plows right into him. Snow clenches his fist and stares at it. Hope spends a moment wondering if he's pushed just a little too hard. Snow's whole body is rigid, and he's radiating rage. Hope swallows hard and braces himself for some sort of retaliation. Snow looks like he might just lash out and hit him for his smart ass comment. Hell, it wouldn't be the first wrap in the mouth he's gotten in his life, but it would probably be the most memorable. And painful. His mouth goes dry at the thought.

"Hey, kid." Snow's voice is dejected, not angry. "I know that I'm not...I'm not who you want protecting you. Right? I mean, I know that Lightning does a better job looking after you. I get that. I mean, look at what's happened since she..." Snow swallows the words and folds in on himself. Hope trembles, realizes that Snow really believes that Lightning is dead. That he's failed her again in the worst possible way. And suddenly, it's all so clear to him. All of Snow's desperate actions to protect Hope at all costs. Because Hope is the only one left that he hasn't failed. His stomach flips and goes sour and he feels an urgent need to fix this somehow. Because Snow is way closer to the edge than Hope would have guessed. "I get it. I do. Just let me...let me get you back to her in one piece." The words are hollow. There's no truth to them whatsoever. "Okay? Can you do that for me?"

Hope nods at Snow's back. Snow won't turn around and look at him so Hope whispers, "sure." Snow nods and keeps moving forward. Hope follows after him. He studies the stoop in the man's shoulders, the hole in the back of his coat, ringed in blood and wide enough for both Hope's forearms. The hole that should have killed him.

Hope experiences a full body shiver so violent that he nearly drops the torch. Because really, what if Snow is right? What if Lightning really did die in that cave in, and Hope's just being a ridiculous child about the whole thing? He'd come so close to losing this man a few hours ago. Possibly the only family he has left. A man who believes that he is a worthless failure. A man that would have sacrificed himself to save everyone else but failed to do even that much. It's absurd that Snow should view living as a failure and yet, Hope is certain that's precisely how Snow feels right now. "That's not true, you know," he blurts.

"What's not true?" Either Snow is playing dumb, or he's just dumb. Hope believes the former in this case.

"That Light does a better job protecting me." Snow doesn't react, so Hope elaborates. "If she'd really believed that, she never would have trusted you to take care of me at all." Hope fires both barrels, knows he's hit the mark when Snow misses a step and stumbles. "She trusts you…"

Snow's chuckle holds no hint of humor. "Trust **me**, Kid. That's not true. If she'd trusted me she would've..."

"Would've what?" Hope prompts.

Snow shakes his head and keeps walking. "Never mind. It's not important."

"Sure it is." His voice cracks on the last word and he curses his changing body. As if he didn't have enough problems with all the running, magic, monsters, his focus, and the imminent metamorphosis into some monster, now he's got to deal with the trials and tribulations of puberty too. Talk about your bum raps. He clears his throat and says, "I don't understand what's going on with you and her. But she does trust you. Maybe more than anyone else. I mean, she tells you things."

"No," Snow snaps. "She doesn't. The truth is, Hope, that I don't know what the hell is going on with Lightning." He shakes his head and deflates again. "And maybe I don't have any right to know anymore, I don't know. But just stop...stop trying to help here, alright? I can't...I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"Alright," Hope concedes. Snow sounds so broken. Hope wants to understand what happened, but he doubts that he'll be able to pry it out of Snow today. Or ever, really. "It's just..."

"Kid..." Snow sighs, rubs at his forehead with one weary hand.

"...she lets you call her 'Sis.'" Snow turns and looks at him with narrowed eyes. "It means something. She hasn't told you not to call her that for a long time now. Has she?"

Snow gives him a hard look. He looks down at the floor, then back at Hope. "No. She hasn't." Hope can almost see the wheels spinning in Snow's head. Maybe Lightning's right. Maybe Snow really is a dumb blond! Or maybe he's so bogged down in his own failures that he can't think straight anymore.

If that's the case, Hope can relate.

Snow straightens up; he turns to fully face Hope, smirks and nods at him. "Thanks, kid." He claps him hard on the back, nearly sending Hope face first onto the floor. _Jeez, he's strong!_

"Yeah, sure. Anytime." He rubs at the tender spot on his back, wondering exactly how large the bruise is going to be. He feels the familiar irritation well up and he grabs onto it with both hands, hoping for some sort of equilibrium. "How about you stop calling me kid now?" Hope asks, wanting to get back to some sort of banter. Snow shouldn't be depressed. It's unnatural and disturbing.

Snow puts a finger to his chin, "Hmm. Let me think about that." He smirks. "Um. Nope. Sorry." He chuckles. "Thanks for playing."

"Jerk."

"Yeah, but that's part of my charm," Snow snickers. He turns and walks away with a stupid grin plastered across his face.

Hope rolls his eyes and heaves a heavy sigh. _Yes it is, _he must concede.

* * *

He's exhausted in body and mind. His whole body aches from hours of walking through cold caverns over rocky terrain. His ankles and feet are sore and his thighs and lower back burn. His right arm hurts so badly from holding the weight of the torch aloft that he actually thinks amputation might be the only option. But then again, that won't do much for the knot behind his right shoulder blade.

In short, Hope is absolutely miserable.

They have been wandering deeper and deeper into this enormous labyrinth without any idea where they are going. He's starting to think that following Snow around is a really lousy idea. Snow may be tough, but no one has ever accused him of having an overabundance of brains. In fact, the opposite is true.

"Where are we going?" Hope can't keep the irritation or discomfort out of his voice.

Snow stops walking and leans against the wall. He rubs at his eyes with forefinger and thumb. "Kid, I wish I knew."

_Oh great!_ "We're going deeper into the mountain. We're never going to find the others if we don't find a way back up," his tone is nasal and whiney and makes him flinch.

Sow heaves a sigh, slides down the wall. "I know." He rests his elbows on his knees. "I'm trying to figure out a pattern to these tunnels, but they don't make any sense. I mean, what the hell is this tunnel doing here?" Snow points to a ten foot deep crevice in wall across from him. Hope peers in. Said tunnel is more grotto than cave. It's not wide enough to be a room and not long enough to be a corridor. Snow's right. There's no discernable reason for its existence. He opens his mouth to say so when Snow barks out, "What the hell good is a hallway to nowhere?"

Hope turns back to Snow, watches as the big man combs the fingers of both hands through his hair and laces them behind his head. The fingers go white. "I don't know," Hope concedes. Hope finds a sconce for the torch on the wall. He slides the torch in, relieved to be able to unburden himself. He rubs at his tender shoulder; his muscles spasm painfully and he can't control the wince and moan.

Snow's head snaps up at the sound. "What's wrong?" He's on his feet at Hope's side in under a second. "What happened?" He pokes at the sore muscle and Hope yelps.

"Watch it!"

Snow reaches into his pocket and pulls out a painkiller and a flask. "Take this," he grumbles. He steps away, large body eclipsing the torchlight. "You should have told me that you were in pain. I would have carried the torch."

Hope shrugs. "It's no big deal."

"Yes it is a big deal!" Snow snaps. Hope recoils in his confusion and stares at Snow's back. Snow is shaking in what Hope can only guess is rage. He doesn't understand why Snow is so riled over nothing. He stares at the other man, trying to figure out what's wrong with him before his own annoyance takes over. Snow is being ridiculous! That in and of itself is nothing new. Maybe if Hope weren't hungry, tired and scared he'd be able to figure out what's got Snow so twisted. But he is! He's way too on edge to bust out his Snow decoder ring right now! He feels his face heat and his hackles rise in preparation for a fight.

Hope growls, turns and walks away. He needs a bit of distance right now. He's too cranky to keep his temper in check and he really doesn't want to lash out at Snow. For one thing, he'll probably say something terrible to the other man (Hope knows that hunger makes him bitchy. He can't help it. He's a growing boy! He needs food. A lot and you know, all the time.) And he really doesn't want to be mean to Snow right now. For some reason, the usually larger-than-life, balls and bluster 'Hero' seems fragile right now. Hurting him would be like...kicking a puppy. Hope doesn't have the stomach for it.

Besides, Lightning wouldn't want him to fight with Snow. He can tell that it bothers her when he lashes out at the big jerk. He can't really figure out why, since she's been less than kind to Snow more times than Hope can even count. But he can see her mood darken, her eyes shutter and her lips pinch into what Sazh once secretly called her 'bitch face' if Hope says anything derogatory about Snow. Hope doesn't like it when Lightning aims her glare at him.

Oh well. He'd always heard that women were confusing and mysteriously annoying creatures. Now he has tangible evidence.

Anyway, he and Snow fighting with each other isn't going to get them anywhere. Right now, all they have is each other. So, a little distance seems to be in order. Hope takes two steps before something down the dead-end, pointless hallway catches his eye. He stares for a moment, trying to figure out what he'd seen. He strains his eyes, squints and realizes that he's not seeing anything in particular.

He's seeing everything.

"Snow?" Hope steps toward the cavern. There's something in there that's throwing light. He shouldn't be able to see anything in that cavern at all. Snow is blocking most of the torchlight, and the ambient light just wouldn't reach that far. He walks toward the cavern, hopes that getting closer will reveal the source of the light. "Hey, Snow?" He calls again.

"What's up, kid?" Hope doesn't turn back. He keeps walking deeper into the alcove. "Hope?" He hears the panic in Snow's voice, realizes that he must be out of sight.

"I'm here," he calls. He hears footsteps stomping towards him, figures Snow will figure it out. He reaches the back of the alcove, runs his hand along a crack. There's light spilling through. Not the dull light of a torch, but...daylight, maybe? "I think I've found a way out!"

He feels a giddiness bubble up from within him, extinguishing all traces of depression and anger. They're getting out of here! They've found a way out of the dark! He smiles wide and whips around, expecting to see Snow behind him.

...And stares into the yellow eyes and wide open mouth of something from his nightmares. Hope's mind goes blank and his mouth goes dry. He goes cold from his scalp to his toes and the small hairs on his whole body stand on end. His eyes skitter over the whole scene. The steep walls, the high ceiling, the blocked passageway. The long, sleek body of the animal blocking his escape. His gaze settles on the animal's teeth, watches a drop of saliva pool at the tip of one razor incisor; it catches the light, scatters it for a moment before gravity grabs hold of it and pulls it to the stone floor.

The moment shatters; the monster growls at him, steps toward him. He flinches back, feels the cold stone wall behind him. Breath explodes from him in a terrified burst. He can't afford to panic, but he can't think either. He needs to do something now or he's never going to get another chance.

Hope pulls his Airwing and holds it up. He can see the trembling in his body translate into his weapon. He can't afford to be frightened. He's only going to get one shot here. If he misses, or only wounds, he'll be dead before he takes the next breath.

_/It's not a question of can or can't./_

Right. There are some things in life you just do. Hope readies his weapon, prepares to release it...

"Hey! It's me you want!" Snow shouts and flies in from out of nowhere to land on the animal's back. Sleek muscles bunch as the animal thrashes to throw Snow from its back. Snow gets both arms around the animal's neck; the animal squeals, growls and throws itself onto its side. Both man and animal disappear from view.

"Snow!" Hope yells, shocked out of his frozen terror. He's moving before his brain engages. He reaches the mouth of the tunnel just in time to see Snow and the animal regain their feet.

"Get the hell out of here, kid!" Snow grunts. He squats, braces himself for an attack. "Come on!" He provokes the circling animal.

Get out of here? Hope ignores the ridiculous command. Snow really is a dumb blond if he thinks that Hope is going to run away. He reaches in himself, gathers up the magic like yarn; he winds it around himself in a shield. He can almost see it swirling around him like a colored aura. He wonders if he can weave the same magic around Snow...

The animal tires of circling. It springs forward with a roar, swipes its paw high. Snow deflects the massive paw, throws a hard punch at the animal's throat. The punch connects and the animal yelps, stumbles. Snow presses his advantage.

Too soon.

The animal leaps and Snow's too close to deflect it. He disappears under two tons of claws and teeth.

"No!" Hope shouts. He reverts to the familiar and hurls a fireball at the animal before it can rip out Snow's throat. He smells singed hair and smoke, but the brightness of the fire blinds him. He sees ripples of color and twirls of light. He blinks and opens his eyes to a world of dancing stars.

"Hope!" Snow shouts. Hope turns toward the voice but can't see anything. He puts his hands out in front of him. He hears a whistle, feels a breeze...

...Ends up on his ass against the wall, winded and dizzy. His head spins in confusion. The sparks in his vision dim, the world filters back and his eyes regain focus as they pass over the sconce on the cave wall. The lit torch is still flickering there. Hope can almost hear the crackle.

He smells something rotten and putrid. His eyes water and he scrunches his nose. He turns his head, and sees only darkness. Hot, humid air ghosts across his face and he closes his eyes, gets another blast of the awful smell. He gags and gets a pain like death tear through his body. He shrieks and the fog swirling in his head evaporates.

He opens his eyes and stares right into the mouth of the monster. The front teeth are inches from his throat, saliva dripping off them onto his pants. He can feel them getting soaked. He wants to push up and away but he can't move. His body is disconnected from his will. The animal's growl vibrates through him. His teeth chatter in response. He wants to stop them and face his death like a man but he can't catch his breath to calm himself down. The world fades...

"Hey!" Pain flares through his abdomen, dragging him conscious again. "Kid! Open your eyes. That's it!" Snow kneels before him. He's pale beneath the blood smeared across his face. Hope stares at the blood, confused.

"W-what. H-happened?" Hope gasps out. He's not sure why he's so tired. Or why his head hurts so much. Or why talking feels like a herculean task.

Snow smiles at him, but there's no joy or humor in it. It almost looks...broken. "Don't worry about it, kid. Alright? Just talk to me?"

Talk to him? Is he crazy? There's some giant enemy around, with giant teeth and claws. He twists his head, trying to see around Snow. Another pain flares through his belly and he moans. "Easy, kid. Stop moving so much." There's pressure now on his gut and he wants to escape it. He wriggles. "Hope, come on. Look at me."

He pants and opens his eyes to find the source of the pain. He sees Snow's big hands on his stomach, gloves black with gore. He blinks at them until his eyes focus and he sees the blood on his pants and shirt.

"W-wha?" It's the most intelligent thing he can come up with. His mouth his so dry.

"Look at me Hope!" Snow demands. He snaps his head up, meets frantic blue eyes. "That's it, kid. Look at me. Don't worry about anything, alright? We're going to get you patched up." Hope can see the lie in Snow's eyes. Now that he's looking, he can see the smears through the blood on Snow's face: evidence of tears. Hope can't look at them. He can't watch Snow cry. He twists away.

"Hey, Hope! You need to talk to me alright? Tell me something I don't know."

_Something he doesn't know? _"Two plus two," he grunts, tastes blood on his lips and swallows it back down, "is four."

Snow's laugh is tinged with hysteria. "Ha ha, that's real cute kid. Real cute. Sis is a terrible influence on you."

"dumb. blond," he whispers.

Snow snorts. "Yeah, yeah. Dumb blond. Blah blah blah. I got it. Real nice kid."

Hope's having a hard time tracking the conversation. The pain from his belly has radiated and spread down to his knees. He feels ill and woozy. He wants to know what happened to him. Figures that he should be able to figure it out, but the pain is all he can think about. His eyes blur before they overflow, hot tears of pain pouring down his face. He pants once, twice.

A sharp sting of pain on his right cheek opens his eyes _(when did I close them?)_, gets his heart hammering. "Keep your eyes open, kid." Snow orders.

Hope swallows, gets a throat full of blood and saliva. It's gross, but it's enough to allow him to squeak out, "Nothing to look at."

"Oh, so you're spending time with Fang too huh? A guy can't catch a break around here." Snow tries to banter with him. Hope wishes Snow could make this better but from the feel of things, he's had his belly splayed open and half his blood volume pour out. If he had some more energy, he'd be crying in pain and screaming in terror right now. As it is, he can barely work up the energy to keep his head up. "Hope, look at me. Keep your eyes open." _I'm trying!_ "Tell me something about you. Or your mom and dad. A story. Something. Come on!"

Hope shakes his head. He wishes Snow would just let him rest. It'll be okay if he can just. Sleep.

"Hey!" Hope focuses on Snow again. "You never told me if you've got a girlfriend. Do you? HOPE." Had he been flagging again? He didn't realize. He blinks and looks down at his lap. He can't see past the sticky sheen of blood to determine how bad the injury is. "Don't look at the blood. Look at me!" Snow orders and for once, Hope has to agree with him. Looking at the blood just builds his panic. Which makes his heart beat faster. Which makes the blood pour out faster. So, not looking at the blood. Starting right. now.

He looks up again, but can't focus on Snow's face. The whole world is a giant blur. Hope stares at a spot over Snow's shoulder and blinks.

Blinks.

Dots of light and color finally resolve themselves and Hope sees something move behind Snow. The torchlight glints off yellow eyes and razor teeth and Hope opens his mouth to warn Snow as the sweet siren song of oblivion snatches him away.

* * *

TBC...

Cliffhanger time. Sorry about that, but in this case, it is absolutely necessary. I SWEAR IT! WE SWEARS IT on the PRECIOUS.

Okay, so I needed to get Snow and Hope to this particular cavern. The tyrant menacing Snow and Hope in the dark is, indeed, the same tyrant from the last chapter. Sorry if it drags on a bit at points, but I really felt it was important to show Hope's evolution since the beginning. And, of course, those things that haven't changed at all. (Like the fact that he thinks Snow is a jerk).  
I'm hoping you all understand why Snow is so irrational, even if Hope doesn't. If not, then I'm failing miserably in my job as a storyteller here.  
Let me know what you think. Reviews do motivate me!


	19. More Human Than Human

Disclaimer: Not mine. If I owned Final Fantasy, I would have a computer that didn't crash, and a car that was built in this decade.  
WOW! I bet you all thought I died or something. This one took me longer than I'd have liked, but to be fair, real life has been a real BITCH lately. Not to mention that I had a lot of ground to cover in this chapter. And of course, this chapter is ridiculously long. Twenty three pages long. HOURS AND HOURS of my life long.  
Thank you to those who've reviewed. Especially xlonelyaurorax who reviewed the last chapter TWICE! I really enjoy all your reviews and hope you like this chapter.

* * *

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats. "  
-H.L. Mencken

-More Human Than Human-

"So, is it all clear now?" Sazh asks from inside the shadows. Lightning is proud of herself for not flinching. Or, you know, startling and shooting him in her surprise. _Really shouldn't sneak up on people, Sazh. Especially when they're on edge. _Lightning turns toward the voice just as Sazh steps into the ring of torchlight. He looks like he's still worried that she might eat his spleen. "I mean..."

"No, it's good now," Lightning answers. She feels better than she has in...well, she's not sure anymore. At least as long as she's been in Mah'Habara, but she doesn't think that's saying much. Truthfully, she's not sure how long they've been in this cave. The constant darkness of the caverns has screwed her internal clock and her sense of time. She feels like she's been trapped in Mah'Habara for a week, while she knows that reasonably, it can't be much more than a day. If that.

She thinks. Maybe.

She watches Sazh and Vanille consider their options. Vanille's eyes are nailed to the floor and Sazh is twitching and shuffling under her gaze. She heaves a sigh. She's been too volatile. She's made her friends question their place in her life and on this journey. It's not really all that unusual for her. She's never been a patient person, and she's abandoned these particular companions at least once before. Back in the Vile Peaks, when Hope first followed her.

She flinches at the memory. She'd been horrible back then; back before she'd started turning into a monster. What does that say about her? She looks at her friends now, casting expectant and wary glances her way. Alright, let's get real here. She's not exactly a picnic now either. The only reason that these people are tolerating her these days is a distinct lack of options. She needs to do something to smooth things over. Say something.

"I'm sorry," she blurts. "I've been..."

"A pain in the ass?" Fang supplies. Lightning narrows her eyes at Fang who just winks and smirks. Lightning finds herself fighting against a smile and decides it's a losing battle. She huffs one laugh and nods.

"Yeah. Something like that."

"Nah, Soldier. Don't apologize." Sazh says. He steps forward, hands held out. Like he's approaching a wild animal. "If anyone is sorry here, it's me. I shouldn't have said...I shouldn't have doubted you." Sazh looks like he's not sure he quite believes what he's saying. Like he's saying it out loud to convince himself just as much as he's trying to convince her. It's both sad and inspiring.

Sazh continues, "There's too many things to fight out there to be fighting with each other. And I forgot..." he pauses, glances at Vanille who gives him a beaming smile, "that we shouldn't give up hope." He swallows, "Which in this case has a double meaning doesn't it?"

She can't help but smile at him as she thinks about the platinum haired boy. Her Hope. _No_, she realizes. Not hers. **Theirs.** "Yeah."

Sazh smiles back at her and looks more certain. Like maybe he's finally managed to convince himself that he's not just spouting platitudes after all. "And while I was being all realistic, I forgot something important."

"What's that?" Lightning asks, intrigued.

"I forgot that that boy will do anything for you." Lightning feels her eyes burn, looks down at her toes for a moment to blink away the tears. _I know, _she thinks. It's a truth that she's been counting on and clinging to since the cave in. "And that 'Hero' is a lot tougher than he looks."

Her throat feels mysteriously thick and clogged. She swallows, hopes that her voice won't shake as she breathes out a, "Yeah." She thinks about Snow. How many times had he held her up, or just held her over the past weeks? How many times had she fed off of his optimism? His strength? How many times had she used him to buttress her own failing controls. How many times had he gotten kicked, punched or slapped by her? He took it all-all her rage, her vitriol, her desolation and devastation-and came back for more. Tough? "He is at that." _Talk about your understatements._

Sazh nods once. "So, I'm sorry," Sazh finishes. "I promised you that I'd follow you and then the first hiccup, I..."

"Stop." She steps forward, grabs his shoulder. "You have nothing to be sorry about. You're a good man, and a good friend." He eyes her fingers on his shoulder. He's still wary of her, but she supposes that's reasonable. She's rash and unreasonable. Volatile. Not to mention that she's mutating right before his eyes. She drops her hand and her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah. It's a beautiful thing! Anyone got a hanky?" Fang says. "Let's get going ladies before my teeth rot from all this sweetness." Fang's sarcasm drains the mounting tension, diffuses the group's solemnity and makes it far easier to breathe. Lightning shoots her a look she hope conveys her immense gratitude.

"Fang!" Vanille scolds, smacking Fang's arm. "You're impossible!"

"What?" Fang asks with total innocence. Sazh laughs hard (possibly harder than necessary) and Lightning smiles. She finds herself getting wistful. Thinks maybe the fal'Cie aren't so bad after all. Without them, she'd never have met these people.

Her brain trips on the thought, can get around the ass backwards logic. _I really am going crazy. _She shakes her head as they start to move on.

* * *

Lightning wants to take point. No. That's not right. She **needs** to take point. She's as twitchy as an addict in withdrawal, desperate for a fix. Hell, she **is** an addict in need of a fix.

Her fix these days is violence.

There's something euphoric in the act of destruction. She'd love to place the blame solely on her metamorphosis, but that would be more than inaccurate; it would be a bald faced lie. There's nothing supernatural about the enticing draw to, and temptation of, brutality. It's an innate, pervasive and very **human** quality. She's seen enough evidence in her years to know this as fact.

She's seen small children demolishing sandcastles on the beach that had taken others hours to build. They laugh, scream, jump and pounce with ferocious glee, no thought or care given to the work or time that had gone into the construction. She's seen them demolish ant hills with the same ruinous joy, oblivious to, or uncaring of, the life that they destroy with the act. She's seen some pull the wings off of insects for the sheer glee of inflicting suffering, and watching the creature squirm and die.

She's seen adults line up to watch as buildings that have outlived their usefulness are demolished. They set off fireworks and cheer as buildings that had been someone's home, or someone's livelihood, implode. They eat and drink and turn what should be practical or even solemn events into a celebration. Reveling and glorying in the instant destruction of something that had taken time to construct.

She's seen people kill vermin with sadistic satisfaction: no thought for the life of the animal they've killed. No respect or reverence for the act of killing, or the power that it implies. Only a dim contentment that they have exterminated something they'd considered filthy. Less, somehow.

She's seen soldiers use wildlife for target practice. Watched as trained and allegedly disciplined men act like boys with BB guns firing at empty bottles. Watched as they turned their rifles on an unfortunate animal and reduced it to an unrecognizable carcass: a mass of blood and meat, no more than fodder for maggots. And laughed.

She's been disenchanted with humans for a long time. Perhaps that is why she had been so willing-eager even-to serve the fal'Cie. Higher beings with a higher purpose. It's annoying that it turns out they match, or even outstrip humans, in the love of destruction and bloodshed.

So she can't help but figure that their 'Maker' or 'Creator' or whatever the hell they want to call it, must be one twisted monstrosity. One Being responsible for creating both humans and fal'Cie. Lightning feels her fists tighten further, driving jagged fingernails deep into the calloused flesh of her palms. She can't help but hope she gets a chance to meet it, just to show it what she thinks of It and Its nasty little 'creations.'

Of course, she's pretty convinced at this point that the tales of an omniscient 'Maker' or 'Creator' are as much fal'Cie fantasy as every other tale the fal'Cie have told to humans. Only this particular bill of goods? It seems to have been sold to themselves. And isn't that just a riot?

Yeah. She'd laugh, but she seems to have lost any and all traces of humor when she lost Snow and Hope. Go figure.

She exhales a breath and continues walking. She'd needed to take point so she could charge into any fray, plunge her weapon into anything unfortunate enough to be in her way. Her breathing had quickened at the thought. She'd felt the buzz of anticipation rattle through her. Felt the blood pound through her dilated vessels and raise a warm, intoxicated flush over her body.

**Needed** it. Like air.

Which is exactly why she'd insisted that Fang take point. So now Lightning trails behind the group in the rearguard position (Snow's position) to remind herself what's at stake now. Caving to irrational need is another step down a very dark path: one that she's further down than anyone (but her, it seems) wants to admit. She understands the enormity of the position she's taken in this little party. Her companions are still willing to trust Lightning with their backs, and that's not something she's willing to abuse. Or lose, for that matter.

Besides, it's not good or healthy to want something to the point of covetousness. She needs to keep herself in check now, maintain some sort of balance. Throwing herself in head first feels great, sends adrenaline firing through her body and makes her feel alive. It also dredges up all sorts of ugly passions that, on the best of days, should remain buried.

Today is nowhere near the best of days.

Sazh slows his pace enough that she catches up to him in three steps. He casts a concerned glance at her but hides it quickly.

"You alright, Soldier?"

She considers her answer for only a moment before deciding that lying requires entirely too much energy and effort.

"No," she answers. He looks surprised. Not at the answer, but at the fact that she'd been honest. _Don't ask questions, if you don't want the answer._ She stifles the smarmy internal voice and continues, "but I'm better than I've been. So, you know..." she trails off. Changes the subject. " And you?"

That surprises him too, and isn't she just on a roll today? Two for two here. It once again seems that she hasn't given much consideration to her friends' overall wellbeing for a while.

Yep. She really is a selfish bitch.

"Good days and bad days I suppose."

She chuckles a bit but winces at the obvious sarcastic bitterness. "Oh, yeah? And today?"

He heaves a hard sigh, then gives her a fake grin. "Today's great!" His voice drips sarcasm and she smiles back at him. He lets the fake smile fade into something a bit more genuine. "But we're alive, for which we have you to thank."

"Me?" Oh yeah! She'd been great. She'd suggested they run through the night across the Archylte Steppe, nearly got them trampled to death, which triggered a cave in that almost killed them all and which may, in fact, have killed two of them. Her mouth goes dry and she swallows the rising lump in her throat.

"Uh, yeah, you. Why?" He casts an assessing glance her way. "Soldier?"

She chews on her lower lip for a moment before spitting it back out and straightening up. She needs to get a grip on herself. Her emotions ping pong so often she's getting whiplash. She understands why Sazh might feel beholden to her; at the same time, she knows that he owes her no thanks. She may not be solely responsible for their current dilemma, but she has contributed far more than most.

"Don't thank me." _I don't deserve it._ "We may die yet."

"You really are a little ray of sunshine, aren't you?" Sazh comments. She smiles and nods.

"Well, no one ever accused me of being cheery."

"Good thing, or they'd have been lying through their teeth." She feels a smile tug at her lip despite herself and she sneaks a glance at Sazh from the corner of her eye. He's got a secret smile on his face as he looks at his open hands. She spots the chicobo sleeping in the palms of his hands. She reaches into his cupped hands and scratches the chicobo's neck with one nail and feels calm.

The shiver shocks her from her calm and she stops moving and cocks her head. The hairs on her neck and back stand on end and she twitches. Sazh shoves the chicobo into the nest of his hair and walks over to her.

"Trouble?"

"Ssh," she hushes, though she's not sure why. She hasn't heard anything. Just feels it. Her brand flares to life like someone took a butane torch to it. She gasps loud enough to startle Sazh, and he watches her fingers clutch at her brand. Takes a small step forward in concern where she'd expected him to back up in suspicion. She closes her eyes, gets a flash of jagged teeth and narrowed, yellow eyes.

"You have got to be kidding me," she whispers. She's not even sure why she's surprised. Life seems to enjoy kicking them while they're down.

"What's up, Soldier?" Sazh has both hands on her shoulders. She must have spaced out longer than she'd thought because Sazh is right in her face now, and her shoulders ache where his fingers are clutching. "You with me?"

She wets her lips, swallows and says, "Yeah. I'm with you." He sighs hard, steps back and releases her.

"You wanna tell me what that was all about?"

_I'd love to. _The truth is, she can't explain why these things happen. She can barely define what exactly it is that is happening to her. She's got her right hand pressed hard into her brand. Both her palm and chest burn so hot that she expects there'll be blisters when she separates them. She peels her sweaty palm from her chest, hears the slurp of wet skin separating and wonders for how long a time she'd disappeared into her own thoughts.

Sazh steps closer again and she realizes that she's taken too long to respond. She scans the cave for the predatory eyes she can feel, and whispers, "We're being hunted."

"Aw, man," is Sazh's response. "You were right. We are never going to catch a break."

"No, we aren't." She agrees. She looks around the corridor and decides that she doesn't want to have another showdown here. If she's being hunted, she wants to set up an ambush before they get jumped.  
"We need to move."

"Yeah, I don't know where the hell Fang and Vanille went."

"They're right around the bend," she says before she even thinks about it. Sazh gives her an odd look that she can understand but not place. It's not the caution or open fear that he's been flashing in varying degrees over the past day or two. This one is more...morbid curiosity. When they turn the bend and spy Fang leaning against the wall watching Vanille trace invisible drawings onto the walls, Lightning might just understand the look on Sazh's face.

"Neat trick. Want to tell me where you learned it?"

"I'd love to." _But I don't have a clue._

"Wanna tell me how you knew?"

"Um..." She considers. "Not really," she answers, deciding that the truth will just freak him out more than not knowing.

The truth is...she can smell them now. Not in a 'we all stink because we haven't bathed properly in days' sort of way, because that's been true for a long while. No, this is more like an 'animal stalking prey' sort of way. So, yeah, she's not really too keen on divulging more information than necessary at this point.

Fang meets her eyes and Lightning could swear the other woman can read her mind. But instead of proving Lightning right, Fang says, "So, moment over? Can we shove off now?"

The question makes Lightning miss a step. Literally. She stumbles a bit at the derailment of her train of thought. All she can say is, "Huh?"

_Eloquent._

"Figured you two had more caring and sharing you wanted to do." Fang shrugs. "I was gonna come and smack you both upside the head, but Vanille here insisted I leave you to it." Lightning feels her face heat and she's not sure why. Somehow Fang has managed to insert innuendo into a rather bland and innocent statement. Lightning isn't sure how she manages to do that all the time. "All done then?"

"You are one strange woman," Sazh mumbles at Fang and Vanille bursts out into a fit of giggles. Fang doesn't look even slightly affronted and Lightning feels like she's missed a step somewhere. Like maybe she's slid into an alternate universe. Fang gives Sazh a wink.

It takes a moment before she realizes that she hasn't ever really observed Sazh, Fang and Vanille interacting before. She's been too busy in her own little bubble, insulated by Snow and to some degree Hope. Is it really that big a surprise that these three have formed their own little family unit, complete with inside jokes? That while she's been waltzing through her own melodrama, raging against her inner demon (or not so inner anymore, it seems) they've been forming bonds of their own? The thought both warms and chills her. Makes her ache all over, feel the loss of Snow and Hope again like an amputation.

She can't think about this now or she'll go crazy. She needs to deal with what's in front of her.

"We have to move," Lightning blurts out, hopes that she's blunted the edge to her tone. She knows that she hasn't succeeded entirely.

"Well, I'm not the one who stopped to chat now, am I?" Fang returns. She's not pissed yet, but she's getting there.

"No, I mean..." She needs to stop. She feels her own ever shortening temper start to flare. She stomps on it, refuses to be baited into an argument. She needs to stay focused. She rubs her forehead, heaves a heavy sigh. "I mean, we're being hunted." Her voice comes out through clenched teeth and she rolls her eyes at herself and her own failing controls. She meets Fang's stare. "Again."

"Oh. Great!" Fang doesn't even ask her by what, or how she knows. Lightning figures that either the answer is obvious, or unimportant. "So let's shove on then."

* * *

They stick close to one another, Lightning now happy to take rearguard position. Half of her wants to hang back and wait. This monster has tracked her across the Archylte Steppe, survived a herd of stampeding Adamantoises and somehow managed to find a way into Mah'Habara despite the massive cave in that nearly killed all of them. She has no doubt that it'll attack her if she lets her guard down.

Her head buzzes and her body twitches at the idea of a good kill.

She shakes her head to dispel the encroaching urge. She needs to keep her focus now. The pack is near now, and getting closer. They're watching her.

She glances around again, wonders where the hell the monster can be hiding in a cavern, when her eyes skim over scratches in the wall. High up. Deep grooves cut in by what she figures is probably a sharp blade.

Tyrant.

She whips around again before she realizes that she's already slain the Tyrant. Its previous presence explains the overall emptiness of the corridor, and its current absence explains the new stalkers on her trail. Even that ballsy bastard beast wouldn't tread into a Tyrant's territory. Not if it wanted to live to see its next meal.

"Soldier?" Sazh's voice wobbles and she feels all her hair stand on end. "You, uh...you better get over here."

Something in his voice or in the look on his face brings her world to a standstill. Lightning feels an urge to flee. Run before she can see whatever it is that has Sazh stuttering and paling and trying so hard to be steady. She goes so far as to look behind her before steeling herself.

Lightning's is many things. But she's no coward. Now she just wishes someone would tell that to her traitorous knees as they seem to have abandoned her.

The first step is tenuous, but the next is steady. By the third she's running. She rounds the bend in the corridor and comes to a rigid halt. She waits for the visual confirmation of her worst fears. Her heart pounds in her chest, her blood throbs against her throat and temples with enough force to hurt. It's a pure and distilled form of terror pouring through her. She's looks around in confusion.

There's nothing here.

Vanille is squatting down, face buried in her hands, and Fang's got a hand over her mouth. She turns toward Lightning and the look in her eyes is indescribable. Lightning doesn't understand it. She's never seen anything remotely like it in those particular eyes before. Fang looks back down at her feet and Lightning follows her gaze, hopes maybe she'll figure out what's spooked the unflappable woman. Her breath catches before her brain has processed what her eyes are seeing.

Blood.

So. Much. Blood.

Lightning kneels beside the lake of blood on the floor before she's even aware that she's moved. The pool is longer than she is tall and half again as wide. The edges are dried to a matte finish, crackled like an aged painting, but there are spots that shine in the center. She has an overwhelming urge to touch the wet spots, to use the still liquid blood as war paint. She reaches, her fingers shaking. There's a high pitched squeal coming from somewhere that pierces the fog. She clutches her ears, finds the noise even louder. She closes her eyes and breathes, exhalations firing off like an automatic weapon. She feels a hand on her shoulder and shrugs it off. It doesn't return.

It's Snow's blood. She knows it. She can smell it! She has no idea how or why her brain recognizes the smell. Not knowing how doesn't change the fact that it does.

And now that her brain has caught onto that fact, she can't stop smelling it. She turns away and retches, her body doing its stellar best to turn itself inside out, except her stomach has nothing to give. She hasn't fed herself anything in...longer than she can remember. And she'd puked up her last actual meal right after the cave in.

The cave in that had mortally wounded Snow.

She folds in half, presses her forehead to her knees, laces her fingers on top of her head and pulls until something in her neck cracks. She digs the heels of her hands into her ears to block out the sound but nothing works. She feels a dampness spread across the tops of her knees, feels the scrape of the rough stone along her knee caps and shins. She fists both hands, feels and hears hair tearing in her grip and grunts in satisfaction.

She feels hands grip her wrists and pull, so she twists her fingers deeper into her hair. She refuses to uncoil right now. She just wants to be left alone. "It's too much blood," she says, but even she can't understand the words right now. Her mouth isn't cooperating. It's trying to make too many different sounds at once. "He couldn't have survived it."

It's Fang's fingers around her wrist. Fang's voice in her ear. "You don't know whose it is."

"I do," she sobs.

"You can't."

"It's Snow's." She's said it. She has no idea how she's managed to press the words out.

"You can't know that," Fang insists. Her voice is gentler than Lightning's ever heard. She doesn't want kindness. Not from Fang. She whips her head up, nearly clips Fang in the jaw with the back of her head. Considering the force behind her movement, she probably would have knocked them both out if she'd made contact.

Fang backs off and Lightning gets her first glimpse of fear in her eyes. One hour ago, it would have made her sick. Right now it's immensely gratifying. "I know it," she growls. "I can smell it."

Fang looks like she has no idea what to do with that particular revelation. She keeps her face neutral, her tone soft. Like she's dealing with a lunatic.

"Okay then," Fang says. "But he's not here, right? I mean, where's the body? You know damn well that the kid couldn't carry the Hero. So if he's..." she pauses, unwilling to say the word 'dead' it seems. "Where the hell is he then?" Fang's voice is soft and Lightning understands that the other woman isn't trying to be contrary. She's trying to help, to present a possibility where Snow is still living and breathing.

Lightning knows that Fang is talking sense but she can't comprehend it right now. Not while she's kneeling three feet from an ocean of Snow's blood. Not with the stink of blood and pain soaking into her. She looks back over at the stain on the floor and wonders if this is really all she's going to have left of him. A big blood stain like some Rorschach ink blot on the cold stone.

A hand comes down on her shoulder and she stiffens, and sniffles hard. She rubs the heel of her hand over her face and it comes away wet. She looks at her hand, half expecting it to be coated in blood, but it's clean. Wet from tears, not blood.

She's not sure why she's surprised by the discovery. She just knows she is.

She's losing the final shreds of her sanity. That must be it. The last tatters have finally come unraveled. Soon, there'll be nothing left of herself to lose.

Is it strange that the thought comforts her?

She glances at the fingers gripping her shoulder, follows the line of the arm to look into Sazh's kind face. Anger explodes through her like a flash fire and she has a sudden and irrational urge to punch Sazh square between his pinched eyebrows. The light from the still lit torch catches on the pooling tears in Sazh's eyes and all her anger evaporates like morning dew. She puts her hand over the fingers on her shoulder and squeezes.

He's lost something here too.

"Oh no!" Vanille gasps and Lightning can't be bothered to find out what's startled the exclamation from the girl. Vanille tends towards histrionics at the best of times. Fang disappears from her side and Lightning catches the whispered, "What is it, love?" before she tunes them both out. Lightning fixes her eyes on one shiny wet patch in the vast sea of blood and exhales again.

_So sorry Snow. So sorry Serah._

She bites down on her lip, sinks teeth deep into the flesh until she tastes blood. She worries the cut until the sting starts to throb and she has something else to think about. Her own blood rather than Snow's.

Sazh hasn't taken his hand from her shoulder. He kneels down next to her in a silent offer of support. A steady, silent rock beside her. He doesn't try to make things better. Doesn't offer platitudes. He's too honest to lie to her, even to make her feel better.

She loves and hates him for that right now.

"Um, Lightning?" Vanille squeaks out, and Lightning really wants to ignore her. If she'd thought the girl would leave her alone, then she probably would. But Vanille isn't one for subtleties. She's not one to take hints and quietly take her leave. And even if she were, she deserves the respect that Lightning herself demands. She deserves acknowledgement.

"Yes?" She looks up at Vanille, sees a hint of her own defeat and desolation mirrored in the girl's eyes. It makes her angry.

Everything makes her angry, it seems.

"Snow wouldn't go anywhere without this, would he?" And Lightning has no idea to what Vanille is referring until a small hand opens and reveals the treasure within.

Serah's tear.

Lightning recoils, tastes bile in the back of her throat, feels tears overflow from her eyes. Sazh's fingers tighten on her shoulder, and he's speaking quietly into her ear, but Lightning can't hear him over all the damn noise. She recognizes the shrill sound from before as her own keening. She's horrified at the noise but can't silence it. There's a pain tearing through her chest and she can't seem to catch her breath no matter how hard she tries. She wonders if she might be dying, wonders if she might find peace there. Might find Serah and Snow there. She reaches for the crystal tear, finds that her whole body is quivering and shaking too much to control her fingers.

She can't do this. She has no idea how she's supposed to pull herself together again. She'd known that the odds were against Snow and Hope. But she's not sure if she can keep going now that her worst fears are realized.

_It's not a question of can or can't. There are some things in life you just do._

The words startle her from her wallowing. She'd spit them at Hope all those long weeks ago. Now, she needs to believe them. She can't afford to fall apart. She needs her mind intact. Even if Snow is gone (she feels her stomach wobble a bit, feels fresh tears well), Hope might still live. He's going to need her. She can't afford to sit here and wait for death or insanity or mutation. She takes one breath and holds it, blows it out slowly. She needs to get a hold of herself. This sort of loss of control is totally unacceptable. There's no time for self indulgence or grieving. There's too much left for her to do. She'd promised Hope she'd protect him, and she's not going to fail him too.

"I'm so sorry Soldier," Sazh whispers. She takes another breath, exhales and finds her calm. She reaches for the crystal, plucks it from Vanille's outstretched hand. She clutches it tight, feels the edges prick into her palm before opening her hand to look at the crystal.

There are smudges from her palm prints on the crystal and reddish brown flecks on it. Blood, she recognizes, and is amazed by her own lack of reaction. She rolls the crystal between her thumb and pointer finger, watches the crystal scatter the light. Watches colors dance across the blood pool.

Remembers that so-long-ago night in Vallis Media. When was that? Last week? A lifetime ago.

_/I. Forgot. Serah...I had no idea what it was, or why I would be holding it...I dropped it. Right there, in the middle of nowhere./_

The memory kindles an ember of hope in her broken heart. To answer Vanille's question: No. Snow wouldn't voluntarily leave Serah's tear behind. But involuntarily? That's possible. Likely? No. The most likely scenario is that Snow died and is food for the massive predators of Gran Pulse. Hell, the pack that's stalking her might have devoured him for all she knows. So, she'll ignore likely and grab onto 'possible' with both hands right now.

She stands so abruptly that everyone startles, takes one step back from her. She ignores her friends' flinches and slips Serah's tear into her pouch. If Snow's gone, then it's up to her to keep her sister's memory alive. If Snow's alive, then she plans on returning the token of his lost love to him.

She casts one more forlorn look at the blood pool. Offers up a silent apology before she balls up all her regret and buries it as deep as it will go and hopes that it will stay there.

Lightning finally meets her friends' eyes. They all look a bit wrecked, stooped with grief. These people who have followed her and stood beside her. These people who have fought with her and will more than likely die with her. Remembers something Snow said to her: _'A burden shared is a burden halved.'_ She feels the weight on her chest lessen enough to get a full breath.

"Let's go find Hope."

* * *

Lightning leads the way this time. She's unconcerned with her pressing need to take point. She doesn't care about the need to kill things. In fact, she's counting on that need right now. She wants to let her inner demon wreak some havoc. She's too much of a mess to be trusted with anyone's back anymore. She feels an urgency she can't describe churning away inside her, drawing her on. Part of her knows she's being pulled towards her stalker and focus. Part of her thinks she's being pulled towards Hope.

She's afraid that the truth is that she is being drawn towards **both**.

She can hear the footsteps of her friends, hears them whispering to each other. If she listens hard enough, she can hear their conversations too. She's noticed that her sense of smell is not alone in its acuity.

She doesn't want to know what they think right now. She's too close to falling into total chaotic madness to allow anyone else's worries to influence her.

Lightning's head is killing her. It feels like someone has taken a chisel and hammer to her brain and performed a very imprecise lobotomy that has left her functional but broken: like a windup toy that only marches backwards.

She scans the hallway for hidden pathways. If Hope is alive, he must have taken a different path. There is no way that he could have gotten past Lightning and Fang _(please, let me be right about that!) _down the main corridor and the boy wouldn't have been foolish enough to try and fight or pass a Tyrant on his own.

Lightning feels her breath skip and she chokes before she pulls herself together. She needs to stay rational and avoid the pitfalls of her nervous emotions. She needs to continue to operate on the assumption that Hope is alive and unharmed. Anything else is impossible to fathom. She can't have lost both of them.

_Of course you could._

She shuts down the voice, wishes she could shut off her higher brain functions. She's been trying to follow logical thought progressions but she keeps getting bogged down in her desperation and misery. She has been actively avoiding thinking about Snow because every time she does, she finds herself shutting down. Remembering his face that last day on the Archylte Steppe when she'd asked him to back off and give her a break. That wounded look.

That is the last conversation she'll ever have with him. She'd told him to back off and give her a break and he had. And now he's gone and she'll never be able to fix anything. Not with him. Not with Serah. Her whole family is gone and she'd spent their last days pushing them away and making them think they were a burden to her!

She ends up on her knees with no idea how she got there. She wonders if it's possible to die from grief and decides that it must be. She wonders if she's about to transform into a Cie'th. She is unraveling at an alarming rate now. She feels like she's been flayed without the benefit of the merciful relief of unconsciousness or death. She feels like her heart has been cored like an apple and she's hemorrhaging all over the cavern floor.

"Come on, Soldier," Sazh whispers. "Hope's still out there."

"You don't believe that," she barks out before her brain can engage. She slaps her hand over her mouth, too late to keep the traitorous words from spilling out. She feels the blood drain from her face accompanied by the strange dizziness that always goes hand in hand with rapid paling. She closes her eyes, presses her fingers into them. "I mean..."

"Come on," Sazh repeats and he puts his hands under her arms and hoists. She opens her eyes on the way up and they catch on something in the shadows. She tenses in anticipation of attack, stares at the spot willing it to move; to give her something to kill. But there's no movement, only a variance in the shadows along the wall. She tilts her head at it to try and figure out what she's seeing; wonders if her eyes are playing tricks on her. She pulls away from Sazh in a daze, moves like she's in a dream toward the deepening shadows until her brain finally, finally, **finally** makes the decision that she is, indeed, seeing a cavern.

"Hey!" She exclaims, feels the first hints of real hope creep back into her. "I think I found something here!" She hits her knees again, this time before the small opening in the cavern wall. She traces along the mouth of the opening, discovers it's only a few feet high and even narrower than it is low. It's probably not a throughway to anywhere. She feels her heart sink a bit.

Sazh squats behind her. "Definitely big enough for the kid to slip through," he mumbles. He raises his voice and calls out, "Hey, Hope! You in there?" The sound echoes through the small cave and Lightning can't decide if that means the cavern is shallow or deep. She knows this answer, but her brain isn't working right. Her mind feels like a motor with stripped gears-completely unable to catch and do anything productive.

She spends a moment spinning her wheels before she decides it doesn't matter. "I'm going in."

"Hey!" Fang snaps from behind her. "Wanna let the torch go first, maybe?" Lightning looks at Fang, then at the light in her hand, glances back into the gaping maw and considers. Should she let Fang take point? Relegate herself to a secondary position?

"No. Follow my lead," she grunts, sees the aggravation explode through Fang like dynamite and shrugs. She'll get over it. Or not. Whatever. Lightning crawls on hands and knees into the darkness.

"Aw, screw it!" Fang mumbles behind her and the meager light from the torch extinguishes and casts them all into a perfect darkness.

Lightning closes her eyes. She finds that if she doesn't try to look, then the loss of her sight is less daunting. She waves her right hand in front of her to check for obstructions before moving forward. The progress is slow but steady. The tiny cavern seems to be an open artery in this miserable cavern. She wants to hurry to the other side but doesn't dare rush. She doesn't want to brain herself on a stone wall. Or startle some sleeping monster and get her throat torn out.

Or whatever.

She continues onward and concentrates on the scratch of stone against her knees and palms, the sound of her companions breathing behind her, the damp chill of the air against her overheated skin. She counts out steps as she goes, tries to estimate the distance and time. She carefully avoids thoughts of Hope. Or Snow.

She feels her skin prickle, her brand tingle. She realizes that she's made a terrible miscalculation. She rocks back on her heels and gropes above her to see if there's room to stand. Her hands hit the ceiling before her arms extend and she gives up gaining her feet and decides to make a break for it. She reaches for the person behind her, finds a hand.

"Move!" She says and yanks hard on Sazh's wrist. She startles him and knocks him off balance for a moment. She grabs him by the back of his coat and hoists, feels the fabric tear. She twists around and falls forward onto her hands and knees and crawls with a speed that any toddler would envy. "We have to move," she pants.

"What...the hell...is going...on...Soldier?"

"Just move it!"

"Care to share with the rest of the class, you crazy bitch?" Fang snaps from somewhere behind her.

"Less talk, more moving!" She snaps. Her knees burn and bruise where they connect with stone floor. Her hands feel raw, like she's dragging them across a cheese grater. She figures she's leaving smears of blood in her wake but she's too frantic to care. They need to get out of this death trap of a cavern before their pursuers decide to pounce.

"Ow!" Vanille yells. Lightning grits her teeth.

"Keep moving!" She orders. She knows it's cruel to disregard Vanille's injury. But she figures it would be crueler to let the girl nurse a small bump, bruise or break only to get torn apart and eaten by some predator.

"But..." Vanille eeps out.

"KEEP MOVING!" She shouts and no one speaks again. Lightning keeps her eyes ahead despite the fact that they are useless. She knows that she'll lose her throat before she sees her attacker.

Something pulls her up short and her weapon is in her hand before she's aware she's pulled it. She stops moving and pushes off her hands to a semi-upright position. The top of Sazh's head hits her square in her lower back, sends both of them face first onto the floor. She twists around onto her side, feels Sazh's hair brush her bare stomach.

She feels the air stir above her head, hears the whistle of something slicing the air at high speeds. She doesn't even grunt just fires her weapon into the air in front of her. The muzzle flare blinds her as surely as the noonday sun, but she gets a glimpse of the attacking animal as it takes three shots to the skull.

Blood and brains rain down upon her. Her ears clog, ring and buzz. She's dizzy and nauseated, figures there's a good chance that she's blown out an eardrum with that little trick. Shooting in close, closed areas is detrimental to the health, can cause damaged ears or even ricochets. Of course neither are as detrimental as, say, evisceration, so she figures she's made the correct choice.

She holsters her weapon and tries not to think about being drenched in bits of animal again. She can feel blood cooling on her arms, sticking in the light hair on her forearms. There's a chunk of something on her cheek below her eye. There's bits of things caught in the crease of her lips. She wipes at them with her left hand, feels the meat and jagged bits of bone smear with the blood. She spits once, ends up with blood in her mouth and is far less disgusted than she should be.

She refuses to think about it.

Sazh pushes himself onto his hands and knees, grunting and cursing the whole way. She follows suit and sits with her back to the wall. She needs to wait out the worst effects of the adrenaline crash. Her body is trembling and twitching. Her head is killing her. She stretches her legs out, bumps into the animal carcass and recoils from it. She braces her back against the wall and uses her feet to press the huge, heavy animal carcass away from her.

"Everyone okay?"

"Holy...Mother! What the hell was that?" Sazh says. Lightning wants to laugh. Feels hysteria bubbling up and she stamps on it. Figures that if they live through this they can all have a real good chuckle.

Later.

When her body stops shaking enough to move, she shimmies onto her knees. "Let's get moving. There are more of them around."

She presses past the cooling, bleeding corpse and continues onward. Her elbows won't lock properly and her arms feel like overcooked spaghetti. She's afraid she's going to topple back onto her face. She clenches her teeth, grits her jaw and picks up the pace. If they don't make it out of this cavern in the next few minutes, they aren't going to get out at all. That's not pessimism, it's just plain fact.

"Hey get the lead out up there!" Fang yells from behind her a few minutes later. Lightning puts as much speed on as she can but knows it won't matter. There's no way that they can move as quickly on four limbs as their four legged pursuers.

Lightning makes a decision. She rolls off her knees, presses her back to the cavern wall, pulls her weapon and yells, "EVERYONE DOWN NOW!" She prays that her friends understand her intentions. She really doesn't want to have bitty pieces of them all over her too. She squeezes the trigger, feels the Edged Carbine explode to life in her hands and gets a strobe effect view of the cavern that makes her dizzy. Yellow eyes glint in the flashing light. She gets a view of jagged teeth before the bullets tear the animal's face off and it falls in a heap within arm's reach of Fang's foot.

Lightning stops shooting, feels the effects of a second adrenaline dump in under ten minutes ravaging her body. She'd throw up if her stomach wasn't so empty.

The next gunshot shocks her heart like a defibrillator: stops it and starts it with one painful jolt. She feels hot liquid splash across her back and shoulders. Something thuds behind her and she twists to get a look at it before she realizes she can't see anything in all this darkness. Spots dance before her eyes, and her ears are so stuffed it feels like someone poured wax into them. And plugged them with cotton. Her head pounds in time with her racing heart.

All in all, she feels like crap.

"Alright! Got that son of a bitch." Sazh crows.

"Nice shot!" Fang praises. "I knew were my favorite Sazh."

"One day you're going to shock me by actually telling the truth." Sazh throws back.

"Don't bet on it," Vanille whispers and snorts. Lightning is still trying to get a handle on herself when she realizes that all of her companions are chortling away in the dark, surrounded by three carcasses and who knows how many other living enemies.

"I think we've all lost our damn minds," Lightning grunts, setting off another fit of inappropriate giggles. She shakes her head, but feels a smile tugging at her lips despite herself.

* * *

The tiny artery opens into a main corridor a few minutes later and Lightning's pretty sure she's never been happier in her whole life to stand up straight. Her lower back is burning from the long crawl through the darkness. Her palms burn from the abrasions. Her knees complain and crack once in protest to the abuse she's heaped upon them. Her ears are still ringing and her head still hurts.

Then Fang lights the torch and the real fun starts.

They are all coated in blood like survivors of some bad horror movie. Actually, they all look like the axe murderer in some bad horror movie. She has spots and speckles of blood and brain dotting her hands, arms and clothing. There are chunks of things she doesn't want to think about clotting into her hair. She runs her fingers through her hair, feels her nails catch and snag and tear and just gives up any hope of grooming. She turns her palms up, sees the road rash that she's been feeling for the past half hour and winces. Her hands look even worse than they felt. She uses bloodied fingernails to pluck pebbles out of the open wounds on her palms, winces as she has to pick at one that's embedded too deep. Once she's cleaned most of that debris, she rubs her palms against her clothes.

Her knees are in pretty much the exact same state as her hands, but she doesn't care enough to worry about them. She can't afford to lose her hands' dexterity. She's not so worried about her knees.

"Everyone alright?" She grunts.

She looks up and finds Fang wrapping Vanille's wrist up in some bandage while Sazh fusses around her. _Oh, yeah. Forgot about that._

She should feel guilty that she'd forgotten her friend's injury but she's too exhausted to really work up the proper amount of shame. She decides she'll work on that later and places that in the seven hundredth position on her 'to do' list.

"We have to get moving," she says already knowing the reaction she's going to get. Fang doesn't disappoint her. She stands and stalks over to Lightning and pokes her finger in her face.

"Look here, little Miss Soldier. We almost died back there, in case you didn't notice." Lightning feels her eyebrow go up as her patience dwindles. "Vanille is hurt," Fang pokes the finger into Lightning's chest, right into her brand and Lightning tenses. Feels every muscle in her body coil as her mind begs her...orders her to lash out.

She exhales and shoves past Fang, holds onto the last bits of her temper by the tips of her fingernails. She strolls over to Vanille, squats next to her and looks at her bandaged arm before glancing up to Vanille's eyes.

Vanille's terrified eyes.

"May I?" She asks, amazed that she's managed to keep her voice steady despite her all-consuming rage. She feels Fang hovering behind her, knows that the woman is poised to attack. Lightning ignores her and waits for Vanille to answer. Vanille nods and lifts her bandaged appendage. Such trust!

Lightning has a sudden urge to rip her arm off and beat Fang to death with it.

She shivers, shakes her head and takes hold of the wrist. Vanille hisses but it's more from fear than the contact. Lightning can feel the fracture in the wrist, knows from experience how badly that hurts. She closes her eyes and digs for a healing spell. She sends it into the injury with the practiced ease of a master.

It's really getting too easy for her.

Vanille sighs in relief and says, "Thank you!" Lightning smiles at her and stands, turns and faces Fang. Fang still looks antsy, but her anger is gone. Her cheeks are tinged with an embarrassed blush and she opens her mouth to say something. Lightning cuts her off.

"Can we go now?" She can't keep her bitter anger or sarcasm from her tone. And Fang must see something else in her eyes because the other woman's fingers tighten around the pole of her Bladed Lance. Lightning's eyes twitch toward the movement, then back up to Fang's eyes. She smiles at her. "You think now's the time?" _Think you've got what it takes?_

"Ladies..." Sazh starts. Lightning holds up a hand to silence him. She can hear the panic in his tone. He knows things might go south here and this won't be anything like the 'cat fights' he's seen before. This one is going to get ugly. And bloody.

Lightning keeps her eyes glued to Fang's. If Fang wants to throw down now, she's ready for her. Hell, she's more than ready.

She's aching for a good fight.

"We might be getting there," Fang says, voice cold as Lightning's ever heard. Looks like she's itching for a good fight too. Lightning feels the grin tugging at her lips.

She resists its siren call.

Lightning nods at her, sighs. "I think..." _you missed your chance "_we've got a little more time. Until I find Hope." Fang narrows her eyes suspiciously, body tensing further and Lightning tenses herself. Ready to throw down, if that's what it's going to come to.

"Alright then," Fang says and the warrior disappears, grieving friend rising up to take her place. And the desolate look in her eyes takes all the starch right out of Lightning, lets her feel the horror that has been absent over the past few minutes. Horror over just how easy it is to become a monster. And how fun it might be.

She turns away from Fang, figures someone's got to be the first one to let things normalize here. If she's unwilling to show Fang her back, how the hell is she going to trust the other woman to watch it? Fang whispers something to Vanille as she kneels beside her. Lightning takes a step and hears something. She whips around and looks at the others to see if they've heard it. They are pulling themselves up off the floor and fussing over Vanille. Lightning shakes her head, figures that maybe she's only heard her ears popping to unclog after all the abuse.

Until she hears it again.

_/Get the hell out of here, Kid!/_

Snow! It's impossible. Her mind is playing tricks on her. She's delusional.

None of those things stop her from running full tilt down the tunnel towards the voices without precaution or a backwards glance.

"Hey, where the hell are you going, Soldier?"

"Wait up you crazy bitch!"

"Lightning!"

She ignores all three of them and concentrates only on the pounding of her feet against rock and the rapid firing of air in and out of her lungs. She runs until her shins ache, until her feet feel as bruised as her knees. Her calves and thighs burn from exertion, and her lungs are struggling to get a full breath. She's working her exhausted body so hard that she's got even odds of passing out right now.

Except she won't. She won't allow it. In fact, she just pushes harder, reaches deeper into herself: past her training, past her anger right into her lizard brain where her most basic instincts exist. Those instincts that drive us to protect ourselves, or in this case, our families. Lightning isn't running to preserve her life. She's running for Snow's life. For Hope's life.

Both mean far more to her now.

She runs through the darkness until she spots light up ahead and then runs even harder. Her breath is gushing out of her faster than she can get it back in and she feels dizziness threatening to drag her into a swoon. She grits her teeth and growls, and pushes harder. Blood sings in her veins, thrums through her at record speeds. Hearing is muffled by her rapid breathing, by adrenaline, but she hears Snow's voice yelling "Don't look at the blood. Look at me!" and she feels her heart wrench as she rounds the last bend...

And spots the predator sneaking up on Snow. The scream that has been building in her for hours-days-years finally tears loose from her chest. It gouges her throat with its ferocious intensity and the animal startles, ears twitching and it turns from its prey to face the oncoming threat. She hurls herself at the animal with every ounce of natural and unnatural strength in her body.

The creature probably outweighs her by close to thirty times. It should be the equivalent of throwing a stone at an Ushumgal Subjugator. Logically, she knows that hitting the animal will be like hitting a wall. Except...

Lightning isn't sure if it's the force of her speed, her will, the creature's shock or some combination of the three, but she somehow takes the animal clean off its feet. She clutches fingers-fists-into the animal's pelt and feels flesh and fur tear as her momentum carries her over and past the downed animal and into the darkness beyond.

She hits the ground hard, skids over the rough stone. She loses half of her wind on impact, but none of her rage. She lets the momentum of her movement propel her legs over her head in a backwards somersault, lands on her knees and whips her blade from its holster in time to see the animal shrug and shiver back to its feet and fix hateful yellow eyes on her.

She bears her teeth, feels her jaw snap at the force of her snarl. The animal growls back at her and she's up and charging it before she's made a conscious choice, before the animal has chosen its course, and she gets a good solid swipe at it for her initiative. The animal yelps then roars at her and charges, she lets it come, ready to take it apart one piece at a time when she hears

"Down, Soldier!"

and she hits the ground rolling as shots ring out. The animal is still alive when it hits her, claws gouging and scoring her as she wrestles the bleeding beast. She still has her weapon (she didn't get to be Guardian Corp for her looks, after all) and she switches to the gun, and puts the barrel under the animal's chin and squeezes until the body stops moving and slumps down as dead weight on top of her.

She spends a moment pinned before she realizes that she can't breathe. She struggles and bucks, feels faint as unconsciousness stalks her.

Hands under her armpits and a calm voice whispering, "I got you, Soldier. Easy," have her relaxing and a mighty tug has her free and gasping for beloved oxygen.

"You're a mess!" Sazh is whispering next to her and she pushes his hands away to stop the healing spell.

"Help me up," she chokes and he does it against his better judgment.

She looks over to where Snow kneels, Vanille and Fang hovering around him. Both are speaking but Lightning can't understand what's going on. She takes a step and stumbles. Sazh grabs her before she hits the ground. Now that the rage has abated and the danger is neutralized, Lightning can feel just how much damage she's taken.

She's going to be really sore for a long time.

"You're really bleeding here Soldier," Sazh says as he wraps something around her arm and pulls. She is aware that she feels...wrong.

Then again, maybe she won't be sore too long after all.

She shrugs away from Sazh and limps towards her friends. She glances around, looking for Hope, can't figure out where the boy is and why he hasn't hurled himself at her as is his custom. Lightning gets a look peek over Snow's shoulder, spies platinum hair and she feels like she can breathe again. Feels a relief she'd never thought possible.

Sees the blood all over Hope.

She gasps and lunges, is beside Snow before her brain catches on. He's covered to his elbows in blood. His hands are pressed to Hope's belly. The boy is paler than she's ever seen, eyes closed, dark lashes a stark contrast to the incredible white of his skin.

He looks dead.

Lightning's mind blanks and she goes numb. She wants to touch Hope. She's terrified of touching Hope. Terrified of finding out that she's arrived too late and he's gone. The world filters back in a barrage.

"You need to let go of him Snow," Vanille is saying, tone steady. Her 'healer' voice. Snow shakes his head and doesn't move. "I need to see how bad it is."

"Just fix him! Do something." Snow orders, hands still pressed hard into Hope's belly. Lightning watches the blood seep between Snow's fingers and looks at Vanille for some direction.

"I need him to let go!" Vanille says out loud. Lightning decides she must be speaking to her. She puts her hands over Snow's and pries at his fingers, tries to muster some strength but it's all gone. She feels panic choke her and she changes tactics.

"Let go, Snow!" She orders. He ignores her and she feels more panic bubble up. "Come on. It'll be alright but you have to let go." She tugs on his wrist. She might as well be pulling on a stone column. She abandons the effort and grabs his chin and forces him to look at her. His eyes are flat, no spark of recognition. No hint of Snow in them at all.

"Let go," she says and looks at his hands still stubbornly holding on. Looks back at Vanille who's getting more frustrated, more panicked. She looks back in his eyes, tries to keep her calm. "You need to let go of Hope." Her voice cracks and takes her patience with it. "NOW, Snow. Now or he's going to die!"

Snow finally lets go of Hope. His blood soaked hands cover his face. His shoulders stoop and his whole body shakes. Vanille takes over, hands replacing Snow's and Lightning can smell the healing magic dance through the air. She watches as the blood stops flowing, as the wound seals up. She bites her lip until she tastes blood. Until she realizes that Snow is babbling into his hands.

She pries the fingers off Snow's face one by one. "Snow? Snow look at me," she whispers. His eyes are sealed, tears spilling through clenched lids and blazing trails through the blood mask on his face.

"So sorry. So sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry, Sis. I let you down. Let you die, let him die. I killed him, oh my god," he folds his arms across his belly and doubles over, keening. Lightning stares at him, terrified. He believes they're all dead. That he's failed them all, failed Hope. Her heart breaks for him. She knows this pain. She'd lived it only hours before when she'd believed him dead. Except this is Snow, and Snow can't fall apart. He's their spirit and their cheerleader. He can't break!

"Snow?" She puts her hand on his shoulder and he only yowls louder. She takes her hand away. "Snow stop it! Stop it! Look at me. Please?" She has no idea what she's going to do. Hope is dying, and Snow is crazy. They're both alive but she can't help either of them.

"He alright then?" Fang asks from beside her, startles her from her thoughts. Lightning looks up at her and shakes her head, looks back at Snow and shakes in her own impotence. "Alright, then. Slide on over. Go help Vanille." Lightning doesn't even think about it, just does as Fang says.

She puts her back to the wall next to Hope, runs her fingers through his hair and takes his hand. There's some color in his cheeks now and his breathing is even. Vanille looks up at her, pale and clammy and just nods. Lightning puts her arms around Hope and holds on. She wants to help him lie down, pillow his head on her leg, but she waits. Too afraid that he'll shatter if she touches him.

Fang waits a moment until she's received confirmation of Hope's survival from Vanille and then squats down next to Snow. "Oi! Hero," she says. She keeps her tone calm with a hint of a query in it. Snow responds to her in the way he'd refused to respond to Lightning. He looks up at Fang with wild eyes and Lightning is relieved the other woman managed to reach him. She refuses to acknowledge her irrational irritation.

Fang offers Snow a small smile before hauling off and belting him across the face hard enough to send him sprawling. "SNAP OUT OF IT!" she shouts.

Lightning shifts forward and grasps Fang's wrist before she can hit Snow again. "Are you insane?" She asks, too astonished to be angry. She releases Fang's hand and watches Snow flail around on the ground a bit before he presses himself up onto hands and knees. He touches the livid handprint on his cheek.

"Ow!" he snaps. "What the hell was that for?"

Fang looks at Lightning and shrugs. "See? Worked like a charm." She squats in front of Snow and says, "Glad to have you back Hero! Things haven't been the same without you. A few more hours, I might've even missed ya!" Fang is gone before Snow can come up with a retort.

Lightning presses a kiss to Hope's forehead and crawls over to Snow, kneels in front of him. He looks dazed instead of crazed and she says, "You with us again?" Snow takes a bit longer to answer than she'd like, but less time than she'd been expecting.

"Sis?" She smiles at him.

"About time, Blondie."

"But I thought you were..." he trails off.

"Dead?" she finishes and shivers once. "Yeah. Join the club."

"We're getting T-shirts and everything," Fang chimes in from the shadows and Lightning can't help but snort. All hostility towards Fang has disappeared. It's so foreign right now she can't even imagine how she'd felt it. Snow turns toward the voice and Fang continues with, "Seriously. We are!"

"Would you stop lying?" Sazh whispers and Lightning feels the tension disappear like a physical oppression. Before she can take another breath she's smashed against Snow, nose mashed painfully into his collarbone.

"I thought I killed you, Sis."

_Huh?_ She feels slower than usual and has no idea what he's talking about at all. "Well, I always knew you were a dumb blond." It comes out garbled and incomprehensible. Snow's chuckle rumbles against the bridge of her nose. She can hear the hysteria that permeates everything, knows that Snow is teetering right on the edge.

She's pretty sure she's sailed right off that edge and is freefalling right now.

She struggles a bit to untangle herself from Snow. All her adrenaline is gone, and the panic that had been fueling her in the aftermath is on 'E.' Her whole body hurts and she can now feel the blood that's steadily flowing from open wounds. Exhaustion and pain tag team her and she doesn't even realize the danger until her peripheral vision disappears.

And then she's gone.

* * *

TBC...

I told you I couldn't avoid that last cliffhanger. This one though? (Ducks as flying projectiles are hurled.) But come on! This one isn't that bad. Right?  
So, that's the end of this particular story arc. What I'd planned as four chapters became six. That seems to be a general trend with this story. Now that we're in August (weeps a bit at the shortening days and the rapidly approaching end of summer) things in real life are going to get really hectic. Not to mention I'm hoping for a VACATION at some point this summer. We'll see how that goes. SO...I'll see you when I see you. (There should be another chapter before the end of the month, but considering that they just keep getting LONGER and LONGER, I can't promise.)  
And I've discovered Left 4 Dead 2 which is consuming 2 hours a day! UGH. I really didn't need that particular addiction.

If you liked it, let me know. I love hearing from you all!


	20. The Blood Dimmed Tide

**WARNING:** This chapter contains depictions of torture and violent imagery. If you are sensitive, I would suggest skipping the opening dream sequence which, as always, is in italics. It's about four pages long. If I could raise the rating to M squared or something, I would, just to emphasize how very much I'm **not** joking about this. I can't imagine that it will get worse than this particular scene in later chapters because I don't think I have the stomach for it. I'd actually considered scratching the entire sequence except it actually serves a purpose beyond being nauseating. I promise.

I want anyone who actually reads the dream sequence to remember that this is not made up nonsense (well the Final Fantasy fanfiction part is, but the torture is real). These are actual things that actual people in history did to one another as punishment. I did the research. I looked at depictions. I had nightmares.

On the other hand, if you're a horror movie fan, then this might be tame to you. This isn't SAW. I exercised discretion. (Although it would probably play really gruesome in pictures.)

I promised I'd warn you if things got worse. It's worse. I want you all to consider yourselves warned. **Here there be monsters...**

* * *

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.  
-Matthew 10:34

-The Blood Dimmed Tide-

_She can hear screams. It's all she hears, feels like it's all she's ever heard. The sounds are obscene: whimpers and gurgles and gagging. She tugs at her hands again but the knots holding them over her head, stretching her out, hold her fast against the pole. She wants to cover her ears to block out the sound, but this is part of her torture. She has to bear witness to the executions of her 'co-conspirators.' The other l'Cie. _

_The Elders had decided that she is the progenitor, the source of the evil. The consequences of that judgment is that she must bear witness to the consequences of her evil: must watch and listen as her friends are killed. As her fiancée is killed. Her punishment will be the last and the longest. The anticipation alone is meant as a torture and she hates them for it. Hates them because it's working! Another slurp and scream and she wishes it would just END already; wishes the punishment would be over and death would claim him. The problem is that once this is over, it will be her turn._

_Her turn to be flayed alive._

_Her whole body shakes and her stomach flutters and twists. The nausea that has been her constant companion over the past two months grows until she's worried about turning inside out. She can't think with all this noise! She can't stop her shuddering breaths, can't stop her chattering teeth. She can't form a coherent thought. Her life is being destroyed around her, taken apart piece by piece. Her lover is being skinned alive only a few feet away. Murdered as she stands here trying to figure a path to freedom. Had she any ability to think rationally she would be disgusted by her cowardice. As it is, she knows only her basic instincts for survival. Her body's flight or fight response has subverted her rational mind._

_Bound as she is, her body can do neither._

_She pulls on her arms until her thumbs dislocate. She hopes that she'll be able to slip the ropes holding her splayed to the pole, but the knots only get tighter the harder she pulls. The ropes cut into the skin of her wrists and ankles until her extremities go purple and numb. There's blood pouring in sheets down her arms, pulled by gravity from the grooves in her wrists over her forearms, elbows, to drip into her ears, over her shoulders and cascade down her back. She wonders if she might get lucky enough to bleed out before they get to her. She's never considered herself a coward, but she's learning now that torture can transform the most brave and stoic into traitors and cowards._

_Something changes in the pattern of sounds. The piercing shrieks and agonized screams have devolved into a pathetic amalgamation of whimpers and moans that lack all humanity. She could just as easily be hearing a wounded cat screeching in its death throes. This sound is somehow even worse than the others and she almost turns to see what's happening in her horrified and morbid curiosity. She cracks her eyes, sees nothing but blood everywhere and clenches them again against the atrocity that is taking place beside her. The brief glimpse is so horrifying she doubts even death will erase it. It will be forever tattooed on her soul. She can never un-see what she has seen. The image of her mutilated lover must be embossed on her eyelids, branded on her brain. She smells the blood, puke, and feces. Each and every one of her friends had lost all control over their bodies before they were granted the blessed reprieve of death. It is a horrifying testament to their pain and desecration. She knows she has all this and more to face. She shakes her head, clenches her teeth and screams._

_Her stomach flips and she retches. The force of the spasms nearly break her spine in her effort to bend double against her bonds. Every hair on her body stands on end. She prays to a Creator she no longer worships to beg for a quick death for her love. For herself. These fal'Cie and their beloved Creator! Curse them all! They have damned them all to death. They should, at least, offer one that is merciful. She and her companions have been faithful servants. And that loyalty has been rewarded with brutality and death. They have been forsaken!_

_The moan rises again into a choking scream. Punctuated by something even more heinous._

_Laughter!_

_She feels her body and face heat, feels the paralyzing fear mutate into a bloodthirsty rage. She yanks on her arms, feels joints pop as she turns toward the sadistic bastards peeling the skin from her love. They'd started with his face, his beautiful, beloved face, so that they could have the pleasure of showing it to her. She'd refused to look and they'd threatened to slice off her eyelids if she continued to disobey. She'd had no choice but to look._

_She wishes she'd allowed them to start cutting her. Perhaps they would have blinded her in their brutal haste._

_The intense fire of her hatred immolates the remains of her terror. She lets the rage flow like poison through her veins. She shouts, feels tears pour from her eyes as she strains against her bonds. She hears something tear and burst in her back but can't feel anything but intoxicating wrath. She catches their eyes and the smiles fade from their lips. The mad glee in their eyes turns into something akin to terror. The idea is satisfying but terror will never be enough! She wants to bathe in their blood. Wants to jump rope with their entrails Wants to shred them into so much rubbish and leave them for the carrion birds to devour. _

_She spits out invectives and venom. They're will never be enough punishment for this atrocity but she is more than willing to try an exact satisfaction. She promises, no SWEARS to them that they will pay. She swears to them, and more importantly to herself, that she will strip the flesh from their bones and keep them alive to feel the whole thing._

_She will kill them all! The Elders. The Executioners. Every living occupant of this soon to be dead city. She will eradicate this city from the face of Gran Pulse. She will destroy every living thing within the city walls and then hunt down the rest! She will end all their bloodlines, destroy everything they love. As they have done unto her, she will do unto them. _

_It is a prayer and an oath!_

_She will purge these people from the face of this world and sow the earth with salt so nothing grows. This place will be fallow and barren. It will be cursed! She will become the Destroyer and bring about their end of days. _

_The ground shakes and rolls like a stormy sea. The two sadistic executioners look nervous, then terrified as the y lose their footing. The ground splits apart under the force of the quaking and Diablos rises from the depths. Its black wings flutter as it rises from the depths. Its claws click and clack together in anticipation of the ruination it will deliver. This Eidolon that had nearly killed her will be her savior. It will help her deliver her judgment and aid her in her ascension. _

_She will become the Angel of Death! The Redeemer and the Destroyer. _

_The End of all Things._

_Kill them! She commands and the Eidolon obeys happily. Her desire is its desire. Her elation is its elation. It bends to the will of its master and bends to its appointed task with relish. She watches and laughs as the two murderers weep and beg, marvels as they are pulverized by the Gravity magic of her Eidolon. She chuckles and claps as their bodies are reduced to a bloody gelatinous mass._

_She laughs as she stoops and paints herself in the blood of her enemies. _

_She is free with no knowledge or memory of getting loose. She is naked but for the blood that smears her skin: some of it from the still gushing wounds at her wrists but most of it is her enemies'. Her fingers tingle as she reaches for the executioners' knife; plucks it from the warm gore on the ground and a creepy, cheery nursery rhyme from her childhood rings through her mind from nowhere. _

What are little boys made of?  
What are little boys made of?  
Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails.  
That's what little boys are made of.

_She snorts at the oddly gruesome imagery of the poem and realizes exactly how demented and diseased humanity can be, to find such imagery humorous. Playful, even. She looks back at the goop on the ground and assesses with an amused and analytical eye. _There's nothing in the smeared remnants of these two that is identifiable as any or all of the above, _she thinks. There's no sign of anything in the remains of these two 'little boys' but blood, bone, and endless yards of entrails. She lifts the bloodied, looping ropes of intestines and squeezes, resenting that there is anything whole left of these monsters. They should be utterly obliterated. She will have to remedy that error later. For now she will leave will leave the bits to the animals. She smiles at the bloody heaps on the ground and spits upon the remains of the dead. Diablos hovers behind her, salivating and anticipating. There is no shred of human feeling in her now. No horror or guilt. All she feels is more blood lust rise from within her to paint the whole universe the same shade of red as the grass at her feet. _

_She tightens her grip on the hilt of the knife and remembers her purpose. She glances at the pole to which her lover is staked and feels the missing horror return. Against all odds, he still breathes. His hazel eyes are uncovered but unseeing. He's too lost in agony and insanity to understand that his torment is over. She reaches, wishes she could touch him but it would only cause more pain. She whispers 'I love you' to him and slips the knife into his heart. The knife is blunted from the long hours of filleting flesh. She's sure to put enough strength behind the thrust to make the kill quick and clean. It slides into his heart as smooth as butter and she watches as the light goes out of his eyes. Watches as he dies._

_She dies with him. Her body continues breathing._

_She cuts the body down from its post, lifts the dead hand and kisses its palm. It's one of the few spots on his upper body that still has skin covering the muscle. She will never be able to make amends for this nightmare. Still, she whispers an apology for her part in this atrocity. She wishes he still had lips for her to kiss._

_The truth is that she is complicit in this degradation. She'd denied her focus and refused to abandon her life. He had offered to go with her. Told her that they shouldn't thwart the will of the fal'Cie. He'd feared punishment for disobedience. But she'd been happy and refused to believe in the urgency of her higher calling and her denial and delay left them all vulnerable to the judgment of mere humans. They'd been accused of blasphemy and communing with demons. She had been weak and her friends have paid dearly for her failing. She feels bubbling in her belly, a reminder of something precious._

_She will not let her child suffer for her mistakes._

_She will remedy this situation. She will protect what she has left, but first she must see to the desecrated departed. She cuts them down one by one, lays them side by side upon the ground. Diablos watches her with an unreadable expression. She ignores the Eidolon and looks back at the dead. Her friends and family. She wants to cover them to give them some measure of respect but there is nothing she can do here. She wears nothing but the skin over her bones and the blood of friends and foes alike. She can offer them no dignity and no peace. She cannot even close their eyes as the flesh of their eyelids is gone, peeled away as easily as skin from a grape. There is nothing she can do for the beloved dead._

_Nothing but avenge them._

_She turns toward the city walls and smiles. And avenge them she will. The ground here will be forever red from the blood of every man, woman and child within this city's white walls. She swears it as her body contorts, bulges, and twists. Her mouth opens in an agonized and ecstatic roar. _

_Night falls for the last time for the citizens of Paddra._

* * *

She comes up swinging from her dream and is on her feet before her brain decides it's conscious. Her head swims for a moment and she searches for a focal point as an aid in her battle against vertigo. There is nothing to look at but impenetrable darkness. She can't see anything at all but she can smell the blood everywhere. The smell is so pervasive that she can taste it. There's pain singing through every part of her and she gets a brief flash of skinned corpses staked out for the crows. Her heart pounds double-time and she gasps, chokes. She lashes out into the darkness, hears an 'oomph' as her fist connects with flesh and bone. She tastes hot and coppery blood on her tongue and she shouts again as more dribs and drabs from her dream assault her waking mind. Her throat aches and burns as if she's been gargling with sand. There's a fire raging in her chest. She feels as if all the air has been pressed out of her lungs, feels breathless as she flails.

Fingers clench hard around her arms and she thrashes against them. Kicks out and feels her foot connect with something; hears a grunt and curse and feels a spark of satisfaction before fear crests and drags her back under. She pulls against the restraining hands, whips her head back and forth and screams again.

A hand covers her mouth, presses until it hurts and she bites down around the meat of the palm until she hears a yelp and tastes fresh blood. The hand disappears and she sucks in a cool breath of air, grunts and yells again.

"Quiet!" Someone whispers in her ear. The voice is so close she shivers, gets another flashback to her violent dream. She ignores the whispered order and thrashes harder in an attempt to escape the restraining hands. "You're going to wake everyone! And draw enemies to us ! Stop it you crazy bitch!"

"I'm going to put her out," someone mumbles and her heart pounds harder, sends a burst of adrenaline through her body. She stomps backwards on an instep as hard as possible and is rewarded with a muffled curse and a loosening grip. She shrugs the fingers off and sprints into the darkness, desperate to escape.

Something hits her hard in her lower back. She loses her balance and flies forward, hits the ground with a yelp and grunt. She feels something in her ribs give and snap. The pain stabs through her entire body like a katana; it steals her breath with its throbbing intensity. Her pursuer sits up over her, presses palms against her shoulders and sits down on the backs of her thighs, pinning her prostrate against the cold stone floor.

"Easy!" A male voice whispers from a distance. "Jeez, woman! Did you have to tackle her?"

"Well," the woman on her back sounds unsure until she exclaims, "Yeah! Unless you fancied chasing this hopped up lunatic through the freezing cold darkness." The woman on her back eases the pressure against her shoulders, scoots back and leans on the backs of her knees. One hand pats at her shoulder, gentling her like a spooked animal. "You alright now?" The voice is soft. "You going to attack anyone if I let you up?"

It takes her a minute to realize that her attacker is speaking to her. She sucks in some air and coughs, hears a wet rattle in her chest and wonders if that's as bad a sign as she thinks. "Get off me."

"I'll take that as a yes," the woman on her back mumbles. "You going to stand there all day, or are you going to help me here?"

"One minute! I'm trying to get some light in here." The words are followed up with a bright flare of light that makes her eyes water and squint reflexively before it dims into a warm, soft glow. "That's better." Footsteps approach her and every muscle tightens in anticipation of attack. "Ah, crap Soldier. You opened up your wounds."

"Well, don't just stand there staring Sazh! For god's sake, grab me the bandages and potions. We need to get this closed up quick." Fingers press hard into the inside of her arm. She winces, listens to footsteps retreat and return. "Thanks for biting me, by the way. I really appreciate it. Only you could manage to nick your Brachial artery. Then open it up again three hours later. Crazy bitch," she mumbles.

Memory slams into Lightning like a sledgehammer. She hadn't even realized that she'd had amnesia until everything comes pouring back in. She'd been so trapped in her nightmare that she'd forgotten that she isn't that person about to be flayed alive. Now that memory has returned, the dream fades away into a distant and lingering discomfort: a vague horrifying impression buried in her subconscious. Her real life fills up her empty mind. She remembers everything: her parents' death, her sister turning to crystal, Anima cursing her. Going to Gran Pulse. The nosebleeds. The cave in. Sazh pulling her out from under the dead animal and making an offhanded comment about the bleeding. He'd tied off something around her arm but she'd been too preoccupied to pay any attention. Too focused on Snow and Hope, once lost and then found again.

_Hope!_ He'd been bleeding out.

"Hope?" She blurts and jerks around to get a look, feels burning-tearing agony spear across her back, neck and shoulders. Long, cool fingers press her down to the cold stone, trace a line next to her left shoulder blade.

"Ah, there you are!" Fang says from her seat on Lightning's back. "Glad to have you back with us," she grunts, though she doesn't sound all that convincing. Or convinced, for that matter. "Stay still so I can patch you properly."

Sazh kneels down beside her and she can feel two sets of hands working: pressing, wrapping, cutting, swathing. She feels a needle stick into her skin and the strange pressure-pain that goes hand in hand with suturing. She winces a few times, realizes that she's pretty torn up this time. She does her best to think about something else as concentrating on the hands patching up her back makes every tiny move and twitch hurt even more.

Sazh's chocobo chick flutters down and lands on the back of her left hand. She watches the chicobo dance across her knuckles, watches it peck and nuzzle at her hand. She smiles, exhales a sharp burst when someone works at a tender spot over her right hipbone. The breath disturbs the chicobo's feathers, ruffles the bird enough that it warks at her and flies away. She tries to watch it but fingers at the back of her head hold her down. "Easy there Soldier. You've gotta try and avoid filthy claws from now on. Especially when two of our healers are down for the count."

Two of their healers. Hope and Vanille, then. Vanille must be out of it from healing Hope. She thinks. At least, that's the only scenario that makes any sense to her. "How's Hope doing?"

This time Fang speaks. "The kid is a tough one alright. Vanille fixed the mess he made of himself and she expects he'll wake up after a good long snooze." She moans when fingers prod a particularly sore spot. "Now it's time to worry about you, shall we?"

"Wha 'bout Snow?" She asks. She needs to know what's happened but her speech is slurring and she's pretty sure that's a bad sign. "He 'kay?"

Fang growls a bit and lifts off her, relieves the pressure on the backs of her thighs and knees from where she'd been perched. "Get over there," she grunts and Lightning has no idea what she's talking about. She hears movement, sees Sazh's boots stop by her face and realizes that Fang hadn't been speaking to her at all. Sazh's hands slip under her shoulders, fingers resting against the top of her clavicle. She feels Fang's nails prick into her right hip as she tightens her grip. Lightning realizes they're about to move her. She's pretty sure that's a bad idea.

"Wait." She says, tries to get her hands under her to push herself off the cold ground. A hand pressed into her lower back holds her still.

"Don't move, or you'll tear things loose," Fang says. Her voice is tight, laced with frustration. Lightning relaxes against the cold floor again, resigns herself to her friends' manhandling. The hand at the small of her back disappears to join the other one at her hip. "On three," Fang says. Fang counts off and Lightning tenses. When Fang reaches three, Sazh lifts and Fang pulls until Lightning is off her stomach. She groans at the movement, but finds that relieving pressure from her cracked ribs is much better. Sazh hauls her upward and sits behind her to brace her up in a semi-seated position.

Fang squats over her, straddling her outstretched legs. She's staring into Lightning's eyes as if she's waiting for something. The image of the woman before her blurs and focuses, blurs and focuses. Lightning blinks a bit until she can get a clear view of her friend's crystal blue eyes. She does a quick sweep of Fang, spots the blood speckled handkerchief tied inexpertly around her friend's hand. "Sorry 'bout that," Lightning nods at the bandage. "And thanks."

Fang raises an eyebrow at her. "Thanking me for busting your ribs, eh? Did you hit your head too?" She looks over Lightning's shoulder at Sazh for some sort of confirmation. She feels fingers run through her hair to prod at her skull. Lightning shifts around to get a look at Sazh but winces at the movement. "Wanna stay still so I can wrap up your ribs?" Fang asks, and the aggravation bleeds through the sarcasm.

Fang brandishes the rolled bandage with the same intensity she does her Bladed Lance. She unrolls a bit and presses it to Lightning's left side, just under her ribcage. She picks up Lightning's right hand and presses it over the end of the bandage. "Hold that there," Fang orders and starts winding bandage around her. "So, you asked me about the Hero, right?"

Lightning nods feels her head lolling on her neck. She's limp as a rag doll. Except she's pretty sure that rag dolls feel far less pain when they flop around. "He a'right?" She mumbles.

Fang sighs. "Well," she starts. "He's a bit frazzled. I mean, what with the kid nearly bleeding out all over him, and then you apparently deciding to do Hope one better."

"Huh?" _Brilliant and well articulated. Truly._

"Don't remember that, eh?" Fang asks, though it's obviously a rhetorical question. "It's not surprising really, considering the copious amounts of blood you lost." Lightning tries to process the words but Fang just keeps on talking. "Yeah, well it seems that you thought him being covered from fingertip to elbow in Hope's blood wasn't enough for one day, so you decided to open up a major artery in your arm and bleed all over the rest of him."

"Oh." Lightning says, wishing she sounded more horrified. Or impressed. Or coherent. "That explains a lot."

"Does it now?" Fang inquires, never ceasing her movements. The question seems aimed more towards humoring her than in any real interest in the subject matter. "Like what?"

"Like the dizziness, nausea and incredible thirst." Lightning's voice sounds like her larynx has gone ten rounds with a cheese grater.

"Ah, yes. That." Fang ties off the bandage. She reaches to the side and retrieves a flask. "This is the last of our fresh water. You need to drink it, not throw it at me." Lightning wonders if that comment is supposed to mean something before deciding that she doesn't actually care. Drinking water sounds pretty much like the best idea that she's ever heard right about now.

Lightning takes a deep swallow from the flask, winces a bit at the taste. She looks at the flask, sniffs then decides that all her senses are skewed from near death experience number forty-seven. Her throat still burns and she's more parched than the desert, so she takes another long, deep swallow of tepid, gritty water. She's ready to chug the entire flask when Sazh's fingers pry the bottle from her mouth whispering, "Go easy or you'll throw it back up."

"He speaks from experience here," Fang remarks. Lightning really has no idea what they are talking about and is entirely too wrung out to launch an investigation. She'll worry about it later.

"I don't understand," Lightning says, taking another drink. She probably shouldn't finish off their water. Others are going to need it. She hands it back to Fang who presses the flask back into her hand.

"Drink all of it!" Fang insists.

"But..."

"No buts. Massive blood loss causes all sorts of problems. You need to replace the fluids." Massive blood loss. _Hope..._

"Then Hope will need water." Fang is already shaking her head in denial.

"Hope will be fine. He's healed. Vanille used all her very best spells on him. His breathing is even and he's not dehydrated. And besides, I'm going to rustle us up some more water now. Once you settle yourself down. So, settle down already," Fang orders.

Lightning's eyes feel heavy and her head swims. She pries her eyes open and shakes her head to dispel the encroaching fog. She really has no intention of sleeping again now. Not after that last dream.

"You've been in an out for a bit. Been a bit delirious. Thought we were attacking you," Sazh explains.

"Oh, don't be shy Sazh. Tell the lady all about her accusations." Lightning really doesn't need to hear it. She has a pretty good idea of what she's been accusing them. Pieces of her dream flash behind her eyes again and she winces as Fang says, "Pretty tasty stuff. I'm not sure if I find your mind scary or impressive."

_How about revolting? Does that one jive?_ She doesn't say that. Instead she says, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, Soldier. It's not your fault." Fang fashions a makeshift sling from the remaining bandage, sets it around Lightning's neck and pulls her left wrist through it to keep her arm immobilized.

"Sure it's her fault. She's the one that damn near got her fool self killed. AGAIN! Don't move that arm. If you pull out the sutures again, I'll let you bleed out." Fang spits out and stands and stalks away. Lightning gets a view of their three sleeping companions. Sees how pale all three of them look, even in the warm orange torchlight.

She sips at the water again and it hits her stomach like a bomb. She swallows and breathes, waits until things calm down a bit before saying, "So how'd you get him to sleep?"

"Hmm?" Sazh hums and Lightning nods over at a sleeping Snow.

"Snow. Sleep. How?" Sazh raises an eyebrow at her grunting but is kind enough to give her a bit of a break. She's not sure she deserves it.

"I, um..." Sazh mumbles.

"Oh just tell the woman!" Fang grunts from her crouch near Vanille. She's got two fingers against the sleeping girl's throat. Taking her pulse to judge relative health is Lightning's guess. From the relieved look on her face, Lightning guesses that Vanille's doing well. Lightning opens her mouth to ask how Vanille is doing when Fang spits out, "He knocked the Hero out." She's too impatient to wait out Sazh's vacillations, it seems.

Lightning's query after Vanille's health remains unasked. She twists to look back at Sazh over her shoulder and levels her most potent accusatory glare at him. She's not sure if she's impressed or angry or a strange mixture of both. Knocking Snow out is no easy task. She ought to know. She's hit him in the head and face with wrist bruising intensity and barely gave him a fat lip. One thing's for sure: the Hero has a thick skull.

Sazh catches her look, eyes widening a bit before saying, "Woah, hey there now! I knocked him out with a **Sleep spell**. Fang over there wanted to hit him with a rock."

"He deserved it," Fang mumbles.

Lightning gives Fang the hairy eyeball for a minute before giving up the task as both pointless and useless. She's about as threatening as Sazh's chocobo chick right now. She looks at Snow, watches the steady cadence of his breathing for a moment and nods. "Whatever works, I guess," she groans. Lightning swallows another sip of water and whispers to Sazh, "help me up, would you?"

"I'm not sure that's..."

"Please?" She asks. Sazh is too much of a gentleman to deny her.

"Alright, but if you rip any stitches, I'm not going to stop Fang from breaking more ribs. Deal?"

Lightning finds his particular brand of concern comforting in an odd and backwards sort of way. She nods and Sazh lifts and puts her on her feet. He stands next to her and waits to make sure she's not going to collapse. She keeps a hold on his arm until the dizziness passes, until the nausea abates. "Thank you."

"Uh huh," Sazh grunts and looks for all the world like he's just done the stupidest thing ever.

Lightning takes a cautious step and keeps her feet. She even feels a bit steadier. "By the way," she glances over at Sazh and waits for him to meet her eyes. "The idea that you could stop Fang from doing something she wants? Hilarious. Really. Are you sure that I'm the one with the head injury?"

"Ha Ha. Real cute, Soldier! You should watch it. I might just let you go and you can pick your own damn self back up off the floor. " He loosens his grip on her arm and she wobbles. The whole world is a bit fuzzy around the edges right now and Lightning spends a moment wondering if that particular feeling is a symptom of shock, fatigue or blood loss. "And by the way, you don't have a head injury. Yet."

"You love me Sazh. I don't know who you're kidding." She mumbles, only vaguely aware of what she's saying.

"Yeah, well be that as it may. I'm not liking you too much right now. Especially seeing as how I'm doing all the heavy lifting and I'm somehow getting all the crap here."

"Heavy lifting, eh?" Lightning says and glances down at herself, then back at her own rear-end. _Heavy lifting my ass!_ She gives Sazh a sly and pointed look and watches the man go a stark shade of pale. It's enough to wipe the smile from her face, and make her look around for an enemy before Sazh starts stammering and stuttering in an attempt to backpedal.

Lightning stares at him for one long, blank moment before it all clicks. Somehow threatening her with bodily harm had all been in good fun, but realizing that his comment might be taken as a crack about her weight. **That** is somehow out of bounds.

If she'd wanted proof that Sazh had been married, she need look no further. Any married man worth his salt knows the correct answer to the question, 'do I look fat in this?'

Lightning lets out one barking laugh before her ribs kick her back for subjecting them to such abuse. She winces, gets one look at the sheepish look on Sazh's face and melts into another fit of painful hysteria. By the time she can breathe she finds Sazh looking at her with a mixture of amusement and curiosity.

"Seriously, Sazh. That's the best laugh I've had in...I have no idea how long." Until now, Snow is the only one who has been able to get her to forget her problems long enough to chuckle. But she's not sure he's ever made her laugh until she cried before. "But a long damn time."

"I'm not sure I see what's so funny." His whole face screws up in confusion.

"Really?" That he doesn't see the hilarity makes her laugh again. She clears her throat, wipes her face and says, "Well, how about the fact that we're trapped on a dead world in a freezing cold, pitch black, overrun with monsters, gigantic cave. We're on a suicide mission to do..." _What are they doing again? Killing lots and lots of...things. Right? _It's probably a bad sign that her mind is too muddled to recall such simple and obvious facts here. She should be worried. She'll get right on that. Right after she explains why this whole thing is so funny.

"I don't even know what anymore," she admits. She snorts when she realizes that the admission is hilarious and Sazh's eyes widen a bit in horror. "But nothing easy," she declares, words slurring. Maybe all that blood loss damaged her brain. The thought isn't as upsetting as it ought to be. It's actually kind of funny too. "Or good." She giggles like she's drunk. Maybe she is drunk. Stranger things have happened, and will continue happening. Daily. "I'm turning quite literally into a monster," she gestures at the gray skin on her arm. Sazh is starting to look a bit worried at her increasing delirium, which she only finds even more hilarious.

"I'm a bandaged, bruised, bloody mess. We're surrounded by corpses. And monsters. And the corpses of monsters! We smell like..." she sniffs at herself and grimaces, "we've been dead for a week. And you're," she snorts at the very idea, "upset that you might have implied that my _**ass**_ looks fat in this outfit?" He cracks a smile at that which only gets her going again. "You're priceless!" She laughs so hard that tears spill over her lids. She's not even sure why the idea has hit her so hard on her funny bone. Perhaps her mind is groping desperately for anything funny as a life preserver in this tempest of tragedy. Perhaps the ridiculous is as humorous as all those parody writers insist. Whatever the case, Lightning can't stop belly laughing, and really doesn't want to. "You are the best man on the planet, I swear!" She gasps around chortles and wipes her eyes with the back of one still bloody hand.

Sazh gives her an ear to ear smile before he says, "Now, that's not all that much of a compliment, Soldier. There's only two men on this whole planet since Hope's a bit young to for the title. And seeing how the Hero is just a giant, rude jerk, I'm not sure how flattered I should really be."

Lightning doubles over and howls, "Stop it or I'm going to pop my stitches."

"What the hell is going on over here?" Fang snaps. She looks like she's trying to lather up a good rage but they've startled her too much for it. The look sends Lightning into another fit of hysteria. "Why are you two laughing like a couple of loons?" She knows this laughter is ridiculous, which just makes her laugh even harder. It seems Sazh finally caught the same crazy bug as Lightning, because he starts honking like a donkey on crack. Fang stares at them as if she's considering which weapon or tactic will shut them up the quickest before she finally asks, "Have you two been drinking? Or did you find some local shrubbery or something?"

"Jealous?" Lightning asks and dissolves into more laughter. The frown on Fang's face twists a bit into a reluctant and resentful half smile.

"Well...yeah!" Fang admits and Lightning laughs so hard she nearly wets herself. "I mean, I thought we were friends. You know, caring and sharing and all that rot!"

"Naw, don't worry about it!" Sazh tells Fang and she looks like she's not sure she believes him. That just makes Lightning laugh harder. "It's more than likely blood loss. Or the painkiller you slipped her." Sazh gives Fang a strange look before saying, "Uh...exactly how many painkillers did you crush up in that water?"

"Three," Fang says. "Why? You think that's too much?"

"**Three?**" Sazh yells, slaps a hand over his mouth. He looks over to make sure he hasn't disturbed their sleeping companions. After a moment he continues in a much softer voice. "Are you crazy?"

"No. Yes. I don't know. I don't know how much drugs to give someone. I'm not a pharmacist. But considering how," Fang's hand waves up and down in a 'look at what a mess she is' gesture, "**injured** she is, and the fact that she's...you know, changing and whatnot, I figured that three was reasonable. I mean... You don't think she's going to die from that, do you?" Fang asks Sazh, looking strangely worried.

"I'm fine!" Lightning exclaims and reaches out to reassure Fang. She catches sight of her hand and stares at it for a moment. It blurs and she blinks and says, "I'm _**great**_ actually."

Fang continues talking as if Lightning hadn't said anything. "But if it's the painkillers making her crazy and loopy, what's your excuse?" Fang asks.

"Me? Nothing! I'm fine."

"You were just clucking away like a couple of hens over here. So what was so funny that you decided to melt into fits of girlish giggles."

"It's nothing really. I was just telling the Soldier how fetching she looks in this outfit." Lightning chokes on the next laugh, lets out a wet cough that tastes too coppery for its own good.

"Have you both snapped?" Fang asks with perfect seriousness. "That's it, isn't it? You've both gone round the bend. We can't afford for you two to lose it right now. We have real problems here!" Fang's so serious. Lightning doubles over with raucous laughter, knees finally giving out. Sazh catches her before she hits the ground again, holds her up and against him as she laughs herself stupid. Laughs until her vision grays out a bit.

"Woah, okay, that's enough of that," Sazh says and sweeps her legs out from under her. Lightning finds that the hilarity vanishes almost as quickly as it had appeared. Pain, it seems, is a spoiled child and it is now exploding into tantrums throughout her broken body.

"You drugged me?" Lightning asks, though she already knows the truth. They'd admitted it two minutes ago. She feels pretty stupid for not realizing it. After all, she feels way too good for it to be anything natural. Now that she thinks about it, she's pretty obviously high.

She'd be pretty angry with herself if she wasn't so damn dopey right now.

"Yeah. We did. Sorry about that," Sazh says. He doesn't look or sound sorry, however. "Remember the deal, Soldier? No injuries, no drugs." Lightning tries to recall that particular deal. She comes up blank. Considering the state of her mind, she's unsurprised by her lack of recall. "These all definitely qualify as injuries."

"That was a dirty trick though," she mumbles. The words sound pouty and whiney rather than angry and outraged. Maybe she's just too drugged to muster the appropriate gusto here. Or maybe she just doesn't actually care. Sazh walks closer to their sleeping companions and sets her down on the cold floor again. All the pains wake up again and send shivering aches through her body. She hisses as she shifts around and leans back against the wall ad crosses her legs at the ankles. Sazh settles next to her before he speaks.

"Maybe it was, but there's really nothing that we can do for your injuries. I mean, you, Vanille and the kid are the healers here. And you're just so messed up." Sazh glances at her then looks away. "We just wanted to do something to help one of you, you know," and Sazh sounds more bitter than he has since...since he told them about forgetting his son. The emptiness in his voice sobers her. She takes his hand from where it rests on his knee, holds it in her right hand and pats it with her left hand.

"Well...alright." She'll forgive him this time. Sazh squeezes her hand once and they just sit in companionable silence. She's still not happy about being drugged. But on the bright side, she'd had some fun for a moment and that's a rare thing these days. She's going to hang onto that joy for now; appreciate it, even if it was an artificial, chemically induced happiness. It's probably the last bit of frivolity she'll ever know. She has no real illusions about coming out of this mess alive, and her life span is probably a matter of days at this point. So...whatever. It seems a little stupid to get caught up in such minor details.

"Alright kiddies," Fang croons, shattering the silence. "I'm off to hunt down some water."

"Now?" Sazh asks. He looks around, unsure. "By yourself? You want me to come with?"

Fang sighs, bats her eyes and give Sazh a patient smile. "Aw, aren't you sweet?" Sazh stiffens and grunts something about cranky bitches with no respect, which draws a shocked snort from Lightning. Fang raises her eyebrow at him. "I'll be fine. I'm not going too far. If I'm right about where we are, there should be a spring that way," she points off into the darkness. "If I don't come across it quick, I'll come right back and we'll go on a search tomorrow when everyone's awake."

"Be careful," Sazh says.

Fang smiles at him and this time its genuine. "You really are very sweet. Have I told you you're my very favorite?" Sazh rolls his eyes and Lightning feels like someone should roll on a snare drum somewhere. "And I'll be careful," Fang concedes. "We are out of potions and painkillers now." She gives Lightning a pointed look. If Lightning hadn't been so drugged, she might find it irritating. "Not to mention the fact that healers are in short supply." Fang gives one nod, grabs a torch from a wall sconce and sets off into the darkness.

"And she calls me a crazy bitch." Sazh gives Lightning a look, smirks, swallows and says **NOTHING**. It's the loudest nothing Lightning's ever heard. Lightning's ears are bleeding from all the NOTHING that Sazh is saying. "What's that look supposed to mean?"

"Oh no!" Sazh exclaims and shakes his head. "I am absolutely NOT getting stuck in that particular trap." Sazh pulls his hand out from between hers. She hadn't even realized she was still holding his hand. He reaches up to his hair to retrieve his chicobo, cups the sleeping bird in one hand and rubs its back with the other. "I was married for too long to not know how not to get sucked into pointless arguments that I can and will **never** win," Sazh says. Lightning smirks. "Let's just skip to the end and I'll say, 'I'm sorry.' Deal?"

Lightning feels her smirk turn into a full blown smile. Her eyes droop, the lids just too heavy to keep up anymore. The drugs are fogging her mind and dragging her relentlessly toward unconsciousness again. The idea of sleep sends a burst of fear induced adrenaline firing through her and drags her conscious again. She presses her fingers into her injured ribs, waits until she feels sweat break out on her skin from the pain before she eases back on the pressure. Pain is good. It keeps her focused.

Sazh glances at her, then turns his full attention at her, brow furrowed with worry. "you alright there Soldier? You look pale."

She pants and waits for the pain to abate. She's a bit nauseated now and any and all traces of warm, fuzzy high has vanished. She's way too uncomfortable to fall asleep now, which had been the entire point.

"I'm fine, " she grunts belatedly. They both know she's lying but neither says anything. There's no point.

* * *

Lightning stares into the darkness, eyes resting on the forms of her sleeping companions but mind wandering. She gazes at Hope, at the smears of blood on his face that her friends missed when they'd washed the rest away. She waits for the relief to come. Here he is now, after hours-days-weeks of searching. He's alive and healing, hopefully on his way to recovery. A living, breathing miracle. Proof that Hope is more than just his name.

Then there's Snow.

She's not sure what to feel about him now. She'd believed him dead. She'd reconciled herself to his death. Not accepted; she would never have lived long enough to accept such loss. But she had extinguished any sort of realistic expectation of his survival. Finding him alive had been overwhelming.

The weight that has been pressing upon her should vanish now. Right?

Except it's still there. The weight on her shoulders, the lump in her throat. The sourness in her gut. The grief. It hasn't abated with any significance. She needs relief. She deserves it. She's earned it, damn it!

And yet, some part of her knows that she's the one blocking it out, refusing to allow it admittance. She'll confess that there is a very large part of her that is terrified that she's hallucinating right now, and that any minute she'll snap out of it and she'll still be on her knees, staring at that blood stain on the floor. That Hope will still be missing and Snow will still be dead. If that's the case and she allows herself to feel the calm relief, then she knows she'll never recover. She can't lose them again now that she's found them. That will break her in ways that she can't begin to fathom.

Lightning doesn't realize how much time has passed until Sazh's head thumps down onto her shoulder. The touch shocks her, makes her realize that she'd been drifting and floating in her own thoughts. Maybe even flirting with sleep for a while. She blinks the glaze from her eyes, listens to Sazh exhale a soft snore that gusts against her neck. She shifts, finds that her back is stiff, her legs are tingling and her butt is almost completely numb. Her brain's internal clock may be both skewed and screwed, but her body knows that she's been sedentary for a very long period of time.

A period of time in which Fang has not returned.

Her heart trip hammers in her chest and her temples. Her breathing accelerates as panic fires through her at the idea that another companion-another friend-has gone missing while she lounged around wallowing and daydreaming.

"Sazh," she croaks. Her voice is hoarse and dry. Her throat feels raw and bloody, like she's been screaming herself stupid instead of sitting quietly in the darkness. She swallows again. "Sazh!" This one comes out a bit stronger. He doesn't answer or move. She reaches across her body to poke him, try to jab him awake with her pointer finger.

Nothing.

Sazh is a dead weight against her shoulder. The panic is morphing into full on terror. She shifts her numb, heavy legs and feels the pins and needles stab through her entire back. She slides over a bit, puts both feet flat on the floor and pushes back in an effort to use the wall behind her as leverage to get herself off the ground. Every injury wakes up and shouts and she gasps about halfway up when her chest muscles spasm. Sazh's head brushes her hip as she stands, and she stops moving mid-ascent, uses her hand to press him back to the wall and wonders if he's drugged himself too. She enlists the help of her right hand in her momentous movement upright, presses it against the wall and pushes until she's standing.

_Holy crap!_ The entire maneuver had been way harder than it had any right to be. She breathes for a moment before remembering that this is urgent. That Fang is missing.

"Sazh," she says. "Wake up!" He doesn't respond. Her head starts pounding from her rising blood pressure. She turns to him and debates crouching before deciding that she'll fall flat on her ass again if she tries it. She's too weak and dizzy to handle more than standing. She uses the toe of her boot to nudge him and raises her voice. "Sazh. Come on. Fang isn't back."

Sazh slumps, slides until he hits the ground with a thud. Her heart stutters for a moment, and she thinks Sazh is dead. He looks dead. She shakes her head and falls to her knees by his side, determined to search for a pulse.

Sazh lets out a snort, and begins snoring in earnest.

She blows out a shaky breath. For a moment she'd been so sure that...she can't bring herself to even think the words now. Not while she's still shaking from the fear.

She stands and walks. Her whole body is shaking and jittering. She's a wreck. She needs to pull herself together before she wakes anyone. She's drugged and probably incoherent. She needs to keep the attention where it belongs. On Fang. If she wakes someone now, she'll end up babbling like a loon and everyone will be distracted.

She steps into the darkness and glances around. She considers just hunting for Fang herself before deciding it's a terrible idea. If anyone wakes up to find them both gone without explanation, they'll have an even larger problem on their hands. They'll go off searching and then there'll be three of them running around in the darkness. It'll be like a comedy act.

Except it won't be funny. At all.

She paces a bit, keeping the campsite in view. She needs to burn off her nervous energy quickly, needs to get a handle on everything. She steps into a small, truncated cavern and gets a strange feeling in her head. Almost a buzzing behind her eyes.

"I so don't need this right now," she whispers. She runs a hand under her nose to check for blood, worried that she might have panicked herself right into another episode. Her hand is clean when it comes away and she stares at it for a moment. The feeling still prickles at her and she glances around the corridor trying to figure out what's going on. She almost smacks herself in the forehead when she finally recognizes the feeling.

Déjà vu.

Such a commonplace feeling. One that she's felt hundreds of times in her life. Inexplicable and completely normal. Nothing supernatural or inhuman about it at all. Except for the fact that she still feels it now, where déjà vu usually vanishes before you even realize it's there.

She stares at the hallway and walks to the end. It all feels familiar to her. The dampness of the corridor. The ubiquitous fear. She puts her hand against the limestone, traces cracks in it until she feels an indent. She traces the outline of it, finds sharp, defined, straight edges. Not natural then. She lays her palm on it and presses.

A door swings outward with an echoing bang. She stares into the darkness for a long moment before stepping into it. It all feels familiar without reason. Like she's been here before except she hasn't. She wonders for a moment if they've somehow doubled back, and now they've reached a cavern that she and Fang walked through on their journey to find Snow and Hope. Her footsteps click clack on the floor and echo loudly in the darkness. It's like she's entered a huge, manmade space instead of another cavern.

She walks forward, pulled by the confusing sensation of familiarity with a place in which she has never been. She moves slowly: takes a step and turns, then another and turns, eyes roving the darkness for something, anything that will solve this mystery. She places her hands out before her like a blind woman, feels her fingertips bump into something. Her brand flares to life and she gasps.

"Are you insane? What the hell were you thinking, wandering off like that?" Fang shouts at her. Her fingernails are digging into the skin of Lightning's elbow. The torch Fang's holding has banished the darkness and Lightning blinks to clear the tears and sting from her eyes.

Lightning looks at Fang and her mind is completely blank. She's too startled to even be properly confused. What **had** she been thinking? What the hell is she doing here? Where exactly is here anyway? She glances around, hoping to get a better visualization of her surroundings. The ring of torchlight only extends a few feet in circumference around where they stand. She thinks back for a moment to clear the cobwebs, remembers Sazh sleeping, her panic, Fang disappearing.

"I was looking for you?" She guesses. No, not guesses. "I was looking for you," she declares. _That's better._ Fang goes bug-eyed at her, face paling with alarming speed. Her fingers unclench from Lightning's arm leaving small, blood filled divots in the soft flesh.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Fang's tone is cautious and nervous, not angry anymore. The sudden change scares Lightning more than she'd ever admit.

"You never came back. You went to find water and you never came back." Fang's mouth hangs open and Lightning's face goes hot, then ice cold. Something is very wrong here and she has a terrible suspicion that that something is **her**.

Fang makes a few false starts, gropes for her words before abandoning the attempt and rubbing her eyes. "Okay. Let's just go back, eh? Sazh is sitting watch and everyone's going to get up soon. I want to be there when they do. Alright? Let's go."

"It wasn't real, was it?" Lightning says. Part of her had known it. She can't believe that she'd been so stupid. "None of it. None of it was real. Right?" She's firing off declarations and questions as fast as her mouth can possibly form them.

"I...I don't know what you mean." Fang stammers. "Look, let's just go back."

"None of it was real," Lightning repeats, this time to herself. She waits for the bereft nausea to fill her. Waits to collapse into hysteria again, only this time, the bad kind.

"Wait, what is that?" Fang asks, gesturing towards Lightning's hands. Lightning follows the gesture and notices the thick, heavy book clutched tight to her body, twisted into the sling. Lightning traces the leather spine with the fingers of her right hand before twisting the book to look at the cover.

Red lettering, in a language she can't read. It doesn't matter. She knows what it is already. Understands why she'd felt such a strong sense of déjà vu. It hadn't been déjà vu at all. She'd felt like she'd been here before because she'd actually been here before. In her dreams. And she may not be able to read the language but she still knows what the writing says.

Ragnarok

"I'm not sure what you mean when you say none of it is real. That looks pretty real to me." Fang whispers with a mixture of awe, wonder and fear.

* * *

"In one version of the Flaying Torture, the victim's arms were tied to a pole above his head while his feet were tied below. His body was now completely exposed and the torturer, with the help of a small knife, peeled off the victim's skin slowly. In most cases, the torturer peeled off his facial skin first, slowly working his way down to the victim's feet. Most victims died before the torturer even reached their waist."  
I told you it was awful.

* * *

TBC...

Okay. First-remember that thing I said about cliffhangers? I guess I do like them after all (ducks flying objects.) I really didn't intend this to be a 'cliffhanger' chapter, but it just kind of happened. And I liked it. So it stays. Sorry.  
Second-This chapter went in a direction that I hadn't intended at first. The whole drugging part? I needed some humor and it felt like it fit. I also thought Lightning deserved a laugh. I hope it at least gave you a smile.  
I really thought that this would be the chapter of reunions. Guess not. I'm sure I'm going to get some complaints that Hope didn't wake up in this chapter but honestly, the boy was nearly disembowled. He deserved some hard earned sleep.  
I've always found the idea of not being able to trust your own mind to be one of the scariest things imaginable. Poor Lightning has felt like she was going mad for a while now. Guess what? (evil grin) Besides-some of my favorite movies are the ones where you realize that you just can not trust the narrator at all. There are many examples. I don't want to spoil them for anyone who hasn't seen them. Few things are worse than someone blurting out the ending of a movie. Like someone saying: "Did you see _? The ending blew my mind. Such a huge shock. I was like, 'holy crap dude!' I never saw it coming!" To you I say: Seriously-**shut up!**

I love hearing from you so drop me a line. I'm open for complaints if you want to file any.


	21. Albatross

Hooray! I finally got it done. If you don't like it, blame the pain and painkillers. I'm suffering from a re-injured shoulder dislocation. In case you were wondering, it hurts a really, really lot! There are no warnings for this chapter.

Thank you to all who have reviewed. Without your support and encouragements, I might have called a Hiatus to this story while dealing with my pain.

* * *

"It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master. "  
-Ayn Rand

-Albatross-

Lightning's mind swirls as she stares at the incomprehensible words etched into the black leather book binding. She has no idea what's going on anymore. She has no memory of picking this book up. She looks at the floor, sees square tiles of alternating colors beneath her feet. She looks to Fang for an explanation only to find that the other woman is no longer looking at her. She is gazing around with awe at the surroundings; specifically, she is staring up. Lightning looks at the long line of Fang's throat as it meets her chin, the small nose on top all angled upwards like a pointing arrow that Lightning's eyes just can't help but follow.

She realizes that she can see outside the circle of firelight. There's another light source somewhere that allows her to see the outline of the dome high overhead. Her eyes do a slow sweep, follow the lines of the high domed ceiling downward until it ceiling meets the walls some thirty feet up. She does a slow turn, eyes widening as she takes in the enormity of the room in which they stand.

There are dozens of freestanding structures scattered throughout the space. They are spaced uniformly, and reach more than halfway to the apex of the overhead dome. She can make out the outlines of the structures but her tired brain cannot discern the point. Not until she considers the book she's holding. And then the familiarity resolves itself and she remembers a dream from a lifetime ago. A dream that led her to this book, in this library.

An ancient library.

"Where the hell are we?" Lightning whispers. It is obvious now that they are in a rotunda designed to house thousands upon thousands of books. It's the largest library that she has ever seen. She looks down at the marble tiles beneath her feet, and decides that the room must be a marvel when it is lit. She looks over at Fang, sees the shocked pallor on the woman's face. "Fang? Do you know where we are?"

Fang shakes her head in the negative, too stunned to vocalize. Fang is never too stunned to speak.

"Is this Oerba?" she prompts.

Fang lets out a derisive snort at that. "Uh..._No._ Oerba is a simple village. This is...I've never seen this before." Lightning isn't happy with the answer. Fang needs to snap out of it and think here.

"Well, where could we be? Come on, Fang. Think about it. This is your home." The needling hits a sore spot and Fang snaps back at her.

"I'm not an archeologist! I don't have a clue where we are," Fang snaps, but as she says it, Lightning sees something in her face change. "Oh," Fang gasps.

"What?" Lightning prompts. Fang starts trolling and Lightning trails her as quietly as possible. She doesn't want to distract Fang from her thoughts, even though part of her just wants to shake the answers from her.

"There were rumors," Fang starts, voice pitched low. Almost like she's talking to herself. "about a city near the Tower." _Tower?_ Lightning wants to ask, but she doesn't. She wants to give Fang a chance to tell the story on her own terms. "We'd looked for it though and we never found anything. After the war started, we needed answers. There were stories, passed down...folktales, and the like, about a city around the Tower. Near the Tower. It was ancient and there were stories of...it doesn't matter."

Lightning wants to disagree but Fang whirls on her and says, tone almost accusatory, "We looked for it!" She repeats, as if Lightning has accused her of lying. "We searched Mah'Habara. We tried searching through the cursed city, figuring maybe that it was the city of legends. And we searched every inch of that city. We found nothing. Or nothing helpful anyway."

"What city?" Fang is speaking in half sentences and thought fragments.

"Paddra," she breathes, and something in Lightning wrenches.

Lightning's whole body tenses at the mention of that name. Paddra. She'd dreamed the end of Paddra only hours before. She feels her stomach flip and her skin crawl as she thinks of the dream. She wishes she could open her skull and carve the memories of her last 'dream' out of her brain. She also knows that erasing the memories from her mind would never lift the taint from her soul. She knows Paddra as if she'd lived there: a white city full of small minded people. A city where unspeakable acts occurred. A city that had been razed to the ground. She hadn't seen the razing in her dream (she'd woken up before things had gotten that far), but she knows that no man, woman or child survived that terrible night, with the same certainty that she knows her parents had died a painful death. She's known for a while now that her dreams are not fabrications. Still, that last dream had been so hideous, that she'd almost hoped it had been a figment of her ever warping imagination.

"Is that where we are? Paddra?" It's equal parts horrifying and intriguing. She cannot control her own morbid curiosity. The need to know more about that city equals the need to never again think of the horrors that transpired there.

"No," Fang declares with a certainty that aggravates Lightning.

"How can you be sure?" Fang gives Lightning a withering look.

"Well, you said it yourself, didn't you? This is my home." Lightning feels her jaw and fists clench at the droll sarcasm. She takes two breaths and decides not to point out that Fang's statement is really not an answer. At all. If she can't say with any certainty where they are, how can she be positive where they are **not**? "Besides," Fang concludes, "Paddra is to the east and we've been heading steadily northwest."

Lightning considers this statement for a moment before she asks, "How can you even possibly know that?" They've been under the mountains in the dark for days.

"Because if you want to survive scavenging and exploring on a world like Gran Pulse, you damn well better have a decent sense of direction. If you haven't noticed, it's a bit large and dangerous." Fang is waspish, even more irritable than usual. Lightning figures that this latest discovery has tilted Fang's world on its axis a bit, so she lets Fang's ire roll off her. Besides, she's got a point.

"Okay," she says, hoping to mollify her jumpy, snappish friend. "so what's to the northwest then?" Fang shakes her head and looks around the rotunda again.

"The Tower," she replies, and Lightning bites her lip to avoid pointing out the inherent uselessness of that answer. Maybe she should write all her questions down and let Fang fill in the answers. Dragging information from her friend piecemeal is enough to drive her up one wall and down the other.

Fang continues, "That's where we've been heading all along." Fang paces as she talks now, trying to burn off some of her nervous energy. "We needed to get out of Mah'Habara, travel through Sulyya Springs to reach the Tower." Fang pauses as if she's either rethinking, or redrawing the route in her mind. "Right." She whispers. "Then up the Tower, which is easier said than done, and we're home. Oerba."

"So if this is the Tower...?" Lightning starts.

"This is **not** Taejin's Tower. I've been there more than once."

"Well it's someplace," Lightning snaps. Fang's world axis may have shifted a bit but Lightning's entire universe has imploded. She's too exhausted to deal with Fang's unhelpful answers. She looks at the book in her hands and says, "Since you don't know anything, maybe this will give us some answers." Lightning braces the book on her bum left arm and slips the fingers of her right hand between the leather cover and the rag paper. She lifts the cover about one inch when Fang's palm slams down on it, shutting the book with an echoing thud and almost knocks the book out of Lightning's grip.

"I don't think you should do that," Fang says. Lightning stares at the long, delicate fingers spread over the cover of the book. The pressure Fang's exerting on the cover of the book presses the blood out of her fingers, leaves them stark white with red trim against the black leather and red embossing of the book binding. Lightning looks up at her, sees something foreign in those near translucent blue eyes.

Fear.

Lightning can't see the problem here, no matter how she looks at the situation.

"It's just a book," she declares, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. Which it really sort of is. Right? Fang shakes her head and gives a derisive snort.

"Nothing is **JUST** anything or haven't you figured that out yet," Fang states as if that vague statement answers anything.

_Okay. What?_

"Cocoon is not **just** an orbiting satellite, The Archylte Steppe isn't **just** a plateau, Mah'Habara is not **JUST** a cavern." She pauses, and taps the top of the book. "And that is definitely NOT 'Just a book.'" Complete with air quotes. It's enough to make Lightning's face contort with confusion.

Because air quotes? Seriously? Lightning had always thought pretentious, full of themselves jerks actually used "Air Quotes." She looks around for a moment, pinches her arm and spends a moment wondering if she's hallucinating again before deciding that even in her wildest, craziest hallucinatory dreams, she'd never have believed Fang (of all people on two worlds) would throw air quotes at her.

"I don't understand," she says. That's the understatement of the decade.

"You're right. You don't." _Where am I? When did blunt as a club Fang become vague and dodgy? _Fang must see the irritation mount and her already scarce patience dwindling more with each vague word.

Fang heaves a huge sigh and says, "That language you can't read. It's Ancient Paddran. It's a dead language from a dead city. From a dead EMPIRE, actually. The largest and longest standing empire on Gran Pulse." Something of Lightning's complete lack of comprehension must show on her face.

"That empire nearly spanned the entire known world. Get it? It's not JUST a book because it's a book from one of the oldest and most powerful empires ever in human history. A book that no one has seen or read for thousands of years. And there may have been a few people left that could still read the language, once upon a time. But not anymore."

"So we're what?" Lightning asks, not understanding the point here. "Not going to look at it? Because it's old? Have you lost your mind completely?"

Fang explodes into a flurry of movement, like the thoughts alone are propelling her around. She suddenly stops moving, rakes her fingers through her hair, looks Lightning dead in the eye and says, as if she's reciting it, "The story goes that Ragnarok the Destroyer razed Paddra to the ground. It killed every living thing in the city and then cursed the ruins. One night, and an entire city was destroyed. Thousands of people were killed. It didn't take long for the entire empire to fall. Gran Pulse descended into anarchy. And the dark time was upon us." Fang sits down on the marble floor and Lightning waits a beat before following suit. Fang snatches the book from Lightning's hands, puts it on the marble floor between them and presses a hand over the cover of the book as if she's afraid it might open itself and start reading from its own pages.

Fang is freaking Lightning out. And considering she's been dreaming about being flayed alive, that's no small task.

"I heard that story my whole life. It was...You don't understand. On Pulse, Ragnarok was a legend. A spook story. Something we told round campfires and at kiddie parties. There were literally NO recordings of it as anything but a folktale. None of us BELIEVED any of it. It was fun. A big scary monster rising up from nowhere and destroying everyone. Stories about Ragnarok rising up and destroying the evil Paddran Empire." She glances down and snorts. "They were preposterous. We'd been taught that when civilization lapsed during the dark time in history, after the collapse of the Empire, that superstitions just bled into the histories. There was no real education and it was all folksy nonsense and oral tradition. Blah blah blah. But seeing this book now..."

There's so much Lightning wants to say. A book doesn't prove anything. It's just a book. And yet..she wants to ask to be taken to Paddra. She feels like she needs to see this city with her own eyes. She wonders if she can find the place where the Paddran l'Cie had been taken for execution, walk in the footsteps of those that came before her. She wonders if seeing a place where Ragnarok rose before will give her insight into the correct path for her now. So many thoughts swirling in her mind like popcorn blasting in an air popper, or houses in a tornado.

None of them make much sense.

"So you see, we'd all written Ragnarok off as myth or legend. There'd been NO evidence of such a thing and we'd assumed that the ancients made up the story to explain away a natural disaster of some sort. A drought, or blight that killed the animals and people of the city proper. Starvation leading to collapse, no centralized government leading to the fall of the entire empire. Right?" Lightning nods at Fang. That certainly makes more sense than a magical monster murdering an entire city of people and then putting a curse upon the ruins. Plague makes more sense. Unfortunately, the magical monster has the advantage of being the truth here.

They are through the looking glass.

"It made perfect sense," Fang says. "And since there was no proof, that's what 'modern' Oerbans learned in school. And taught to our children. No nonsensical stories about an imaginary destroyer. After all, something like that would leave a trace behind, right?" Fang swallows.

"Yeah. There was no sign of Ragnarok. That is, until MY time. When..." Fang trails off, unable or unwilling to complete the thought.

She doesn't need to say it. Lightning's mind filled in the blanks like one of those Mad Libs books from when she was a child. "When Ragnarok rose up and scarred Cocoon," she whispers.

Fang nods. "Something like that." She traces patterns over the cover of the book with the tips of her fingernails. "These letters look hand-stamped into the leather." Lightning looks at the binding, traces her own fingertips over the spine. She's not certain that the cover is 'leather', per se. She takes a deep whiff and flinches. Lightning believes the cover is made from something far more sinister than animal skin. And the stamping is almost certainly NOT ink. She isn't going to voice her suspicions right now, however. They have enough problems without her throwing her own morbidity into the mix. "This book is probably older than any standing building on Gran Pulse. Including Taejin's Tower, which was a Watchtower of the ancient world." Fang's tone is full of awe and reverence.

Lightning can see the awe, but can't relate at all. Pretty much everything on Gran Pulse is worthy of reverence as far as Lightning is concerned. She can't bring herself to care more for this book than, say, the room that houses it. All she sees when she stares at the book is the potential for an answer. She can't help but feel like there must be a reason that she's been led here. Everything that's happened, everything she's dreamed, have all culminated into her laying hands on this book. She's not certain if it's the fal'Cie that have instilled this drive in her with her brand, or if it's something else entirely that has been using her body and mind as an instrument. All she knows is that she feels as if she's been herded here, to this room, to this book. And she wonders if she's going to have to fight Fang for the privilege of the knowledge housed in this book.

"Everything was myth," Fang whispers. Her eyes are fixed on the book cover but her vision is focused inward. Lightning recognizes the look. She's worn it often enough over the past weeks. Fang drags herself from her thoughts long enough to say, "There were legends about people living in Cocoon. But there was no proof. We'd never seen any sign of other humans. So we'd all chalked it up to mythology. You know, like everything else." Fang's eyes harden and her fingers clench into fists.

"At least until Cocoon attacked us." Fang says. Lightning snaps to attention. "Then it was like we were living in some nightmare world. Everyone was dying, and everything was burning."

"Wait a minute," Lightning says, torn from her singular fixation on the book. She is confused and more than a little annoyed that this is once again turning into a Pulse versus Cocoon battle. "Pulse attacked Cocoon." As she says it, she realizes that she has no way of knowing such a thing. All information on Cocoon has been filtered through and disseminated by the fal'Cie. "At least, that's what we've always been told."

"Told, eh?" Fang retorts, and Lightning can hear the dangerous edge creeping into her voice. Fang stands and hovers threateningly. Things can go south very quickly here if Lightning doesn't mind her words. "Well I was THERE. Here! Whatever. And Pulse didn't attack anyone!" Lightning pulls herself to her feet and watches as Fang starts pacing through her anger. "Like I said, we didn't even know you were there. Why the hell would we attack you?"

_Why would Cocoon attack Pulse?_ The question hovers on the tip of her tongue, her shortening temper threatening to hurl invectives at the other woman and just do this thing already. They've been dancing around finally throwing down for so long Lightning doesn't even remember her life prior to meeting and fighting with Fang. It'll be a relief to cut the damn pregame and just get on with the main event already.

Sense asserts itself and she cools her temper, looks at the book again. And it all clicks into place. She can see it as clearly as the hidden 3D images in posters once you finally relax your eyes and look at them correctly.

"Oh man," she sighs and Fang lifts an eyebrow at her. She'd obviously been prepping herself for a good rough-and-tumble. "Of course Pulse didn't attack," Lightning says with complete honesty. Like she should have known it all along. Fang looks mollified if confused. "And I hate to tell you this, but Cocoon didn't attack Pulse either." Fang's brow furrows and she looks like she's about to resume arguing.

"It's so clear now." Lightning does a slow turn and examines the large room. A monument to a lost civilization. More true history and knowledge housed than humans have known in hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. It should be treated as a temple and shrine from this day forward. Everything left of humanity on Pulse is in this room. This is possibly the closest they'll ever come to knowing the true history of humans at all. No knowledge exists on Cocoon beyond what the fal'Cie distribute and spoon feed to the masses. And Lightning has reached the dismal conclusion that there are no people left on Gran Pulse at all. If they fail to beat this focus, then everything that humanity ever was, or ever could be will disappear. It will be like they never existed.

Which seems to be the fal'Cie's ultimate goal.

"It's so clear," she repeats and Fang gives her a look that screams 'WELL?' "The fal'Cie attacked us both." She looks back at Fang and says, "To start a war. So we would kill each other. They attacked us, then they all blamed it on the scary, evildoing outsiders. They wound us up like toys and watched us...kill one another. They could have everything they wanted and they'd never have to dirty their hands." _Did they even have hands?_

Lightning watches a thousand emotions play over Fang's face. And it isn't even a realization that they haven't made before, but still, the complete upending of entire world view is a painful and strenuous thing. People kill one another-often-when others question their beliefs and moral foundations. And in less than ten words, Lightning has just disproved everything Fang believed as truth. Everything she'd fought, and essentially died for.

Lightning wouldn't be surprised if Fang lashed out at her. She's willing to let the woman curse, shout, hell, even hit right now. But all Fang does is sag. "Right," she whispers. "Of course. All we knew is that we were attacked, so the fal'Cie Anima made l'Cie-made ME a l'Cie-to protect Pulse."

"And to destroy Cocoon," Lightning finishes. _Second verse, same as the first. _Fang nods but looks unconvinced.

"Maybe. It sounds right, I suppose." Lightning scrunches her whole face in confusion.

"Sounds right?" She asks. Something about the way Fang says it confuses her. Fang nods at her.

"Yeah, sounds right," Fang shakes her head, "but doesn't feel right." Lightning spends a moment wondering if Fang feels as crazy as she does all the time when Fang's frustration gets the better of her. "Damn," she shouts. "I wish...I just wish I could remember, you know? There's this big black hole in my mind and I'm sure that the answers are all in it." Fang closes her eyes and presses brutal fingers into the bridge of her nose.

Lightning's never really thought about Fang's memory lapse before, and the realization of that bothers her. Of course to be fair, Fang never really speaks about it either. Fang has mentioned it once, maybe twice, and just sort of moved on from there. Fang isn't one to dwell, and in all the ensuing commotion, it had been easy to dismiss her memory loss and move on. It had never seemed to bother her, so Lightning hadn't given it a second thought.

She really is a selfish bitch!

Had Lightning thought about it, she would have realized the frustration and fear that must be ubiquitous for Fang. Lightning still has a gap in her memory from the night she'd slaughtered that animal. She'd gone to sleep in one place, woken up in another with evidence of horrible events all over her body but no memory of the interim timeframe. The combination of the evidence without memory had nearly driven Lightning mad.

It's the same thing on a far smaller scale: a black hole in her mind.

She remembers feeling the same way. Remembers the vague sense of some memory in that void, the feelings and impressions that she can still feel if she just scrapes at the edges of that darkness. For her, it's a few hours. For Fang, it's days. Weeks. Months even. The idea of it makes her ill and she realizes once again that Fang is stronger than Lightning can ever hope to be. Lightning looks over at Fang with renewed respect, watches as she fidgets and flutters around.

Fang's fidgeting turns to pacing and finally she blurts, "We need to go back. Talk to the others. I need...I need Vanille to tell me the truth now. Enough is enough!" Fang sounds furious. Lightning is no stranger to Fang's anger, but she's never seen or heard it directed toward Vanille before. It's surreal.

Fang begins to walk away and Lightning realizes that she's going to leave. Leave her behind and go back to the group. She feels herself pale. Half of her wants to just stand here forever. Things make sense to her here in this room in a way that they haven't for days out there. Leaving here means facing her own confusion. Her stomach churns and her skin crawls at the idea. Going back means facing truths from which she'd rather hide. Going back means finding out for sure what is real, and what is a function of her ever warping mind.

Fang is almost to the door when Lightning stops her.

"Fang," she barely recognizes her own voice. Considering the startled look on Fang's face, she's figuring she sounds every inch as terrified as she feels right now. Still, she is many things, but she is now coward (or so she keeps insisting, anyway).

"I need to know..." the words stick in her throat. She sighs. _This is ridiculous!_ "I..."

"Spit it out already," Fang says as she strolls back over to Lightning. There is a strange amalgamation of peeved and nervous on Fang's face that might be funny if it weren't so appropriate. "Come on then. Just say it."

"I don't know what's real anymore." There. She's said it. She waits for Fang's reaction.

The look on Fang's face doesn't change. At all.

"I don't get it," Fang admits. "What the hell are you talking about?"

She's not sure why she'd expected this confessional to be easier. She hates talking about feelings and Fang is a tad oblivious to feelings at the best of times.

This is hardly the best of times.

"It feels like I'm walking through a dream. Or a nightmare." She doesn't look at Fang, afraid of being derailed. "And sometimes I feel like things are real, but they're not." She remembers her walk in another universe, in someone else's skin, in someone else's clothes out on the Archylte Steppe that lifetime ago; remembers running scared to find her friends only to find that she had been staring into Snow's eyes all along. She remembers waking a few minutes (hours?) ago to find Fang missing from their campsite when she'd actually been there all along.

"And sometimes," she continues. "Sometimes it feels like things aren't real, but they are." Like this room, and this book. A scene straight from her dreams, and now that she thinks about it, she even remembers the smell of this room.

When she meets Fang's eyes again, the woman is nodding sagely at her and Lightning feels something uncoil.

_/A burden shared is a burden halved./_ Seems like Snow isn't such a dumb blond after all.

"I see how that might be a problem, yeah." Fang says and there's something off in her tone. For a moment Lightning wonders if she's once again slid into some reverie. "But I don't know how I can help you. I mean, me telling you that I'm real isn't going to do you much good, is it?" Fang says. The tone is sincere and yet...

"Not really, no," Lightning replies.

"Oh, I have an idea," Fang says like she's had an enormous revelation. "Would you hold this for me?" She presses the book into Lightning's arms before she even realizes what's going on. Lightning fumbles the book a bit in an effort to favor her wounded arm, feels the weight of it pull and drag on her injuries awkwardly.

The right cross that comes flying out of nowhere not only takes her by surprise, it takes her clean off her feet.

She hits the marble tiles with a bone jarring thud, her right arm folding beneath her and going numb with the impact. The book flies out of her hands and skidders across the floor with a swoosh. Her ears are ringing, her eyes are tearing and her head pounds with renewed fury. She shakes her head like a dog in an effort to clear it, feels the cold from the marble seeping into her body. Feeling returns to her numbed limb in a burning rush that hurts more than the punch itself. Her right shoulder complains anew at the fresh abuse, flares with pain with every breath. She presses herself up onto her elbow, feels the spasms in her arm and back from the still weak joint as she works herself into a seated position.

Her left arm is still slung around her neck, but the sling has shifted and now borders on choking her. She adjusts that first, gets her left arm settled against her aching ribs. She uses her right hand to touch her stinging jaw. There are tears pouring from her eyes from the unexpected pain. She cups her jaw in her palm and shifts it around, testing for breaks or dislocations. The joint snaps and creaks sending more tears pouring from her eyes; but she's been hit enough to know the difference between a nasty bruise, a dislocation, and a break.

Lightning spits out a mouthful of blood onto the white tiles, then pokes at her teeth to make sure they are intact. If Fang's knocked one loose with a sucker punch then all bets are off. Lightning will tear the bitch apart and smile doing it. And if Fang thinks she can't...well, then she hasn't been paying attention. Injured or not, Lightning is more than capable of beating the crap out of Fang. She opens and closes her jaw again, feels and hears more snapping and pulling. Not to mention that she's pretty eager to deliver a good beat down too.

Fingers prod at each tooth, wiggle them in search of any looseness, breaks or cracks. Her teeth are fine, and Lightning can't decide if she's relieved or disappointed. She'd been getting excited at the prospect of knocking Fang's teeth out and then feeding them to her one by one.

Lightning's fingers catch on her bottom lip, drawing a wince. She pulls them away and they come back sticky with fresh blood. She's not sure if Fang's knuckles or her own teeth tore her lip open, but decides that it ultimately doesn't matter. She presses the pads of her first two fingers to the cut and winces again. She looks up at Fang's unreadable expression.

Fang stands close enough for Lightning to leg sweep if necessary, but the other woman's got a hand extended to her, palm up. An offer of aid. Lightning looks from the hand to the face and wonders if Fang has actually gone as bat-shit crazy as Lightning feels most of the time. She's obviously more than slightly off her rocker to throw a punch like that and then stand within arm's reach of an opponent like Lightning. Lightning considers kicking the woman's knee cap, bending her leg the wrong way. It won't kill her, but Fang might wish it had.

Lightning tamps down the rage, knows it's the monster growing within her that longs to hear the sweet melody of agonized cries mixed with snapping bones. She needs a grip on herself. She looks again at the proffered hand and considers smacking it away from her before deciding to just screw pride and go with it. She can always reconsider later. She lets Fang pull her onto her feet.

Once she's upright, Fang takes a moment to straighten Lightning's sling, adjust her arm against her side and generally fuss like a mother dressing a child up for their first day of school. Fang brushes imaginary lint from Lightning's shoulder, smoothes out her shirt, looks into her eyes and says, "How 'bout that? That real enough for you?" Fang asks, tone even, but holding a hint of the smirk Lightning can see tugging at the woman's mouth. Lightning's anger and rage disappear under a swell of dark amusement. She chuckles and Fang smiles back at her.

Whatever works.

"So, are we clear now, or shall I try again? I mean, I wouldn't want you to doubt whether or not I'm really me."

Lightning holds up her hand in a warding gesture and says, "I think I'm good, thanks." She rubs at her aching jaw, feels it snap again.

Fang gives what looks like a sympathetic wince and Lightning almost gives into her urge to hit back. She's having a great deal of trouble controlling her baser animal urges these days. Fang should be more careful with her sucker punches.

"Right then. So how's about we head back to the others before they wake up?" Fang says, strolling over to retrieve the book. "There are some things I think we all need to discuss."

Lightning feels like she's been hit with a bucket of ice water. Something in her posture or face must give her away and Fang goes very still. She looks mortified and guilty. "Oh. I see. So when you said that you're not sure what's real, you didn't mean me, did you?"

Lightning shakes her head, then nods, then shakes it again. "Not...Well, yeah I meant you too. But that wasn't..." she trails off, unwilling to finish her sentence. Because she's still not sure if it's real. If they really found Snow and Hope or if she'd imagined the entire scenario and the last trace she'll ever find of them is a drying bloodstain on a cavern floor.

"We did find them you know," Fang says, and it should be a relief because she's sure that Fang, at least, is real. She thinks. Maybe. Fang puts a hand on Lightning's shoulder. "You thought, what? That you'd hallucinated the whole thing?"

She pinches the bridge of her nose with more violence than Fang used to deliver her punch. Lightning feels the tears burning beneath her lids, feels the telltale clogging in her nose and sniffles. She presses the blunt fingernails of her thumb and pointer finger into her sealed eyelids in an effort to forcibly restrain the tears threatening to flow.

If she falls apart now, she'll never pull it back together. Moreover, she's not sure she'll want to.

"Look," Fang starts and she sounds as uncomfortable as a woman in thumbscrews.

"I just..." Lightning chokes, swallows and tries again, "I wanted it so badly and then, there it was. There they were. And then nothing made sense. I didn't know who I was. Or where I was. Or who you were. And I thought you were trying to kill me, but then things seemed...I don't know, normal except I felt high. Or I was high. I think. And then you were gone but you're saying you were there and I'm here and it's like a dream. You know? Things have no continuity anymore. Not even me. I'm not even ME half the time."

Fang's face is pinched and Lightning thinks that her diatribe may have been as difficult for Fang to hear as it was for her to say.

"I can't prove to you that I'm real." And Lightning takes an instinctive defensive posture. Fang won't get a second chance at a sucker punch. Fang catches the movement, smirks a bit, shakes her head and says, "I mean, what good does saying, 'I'm not a dream' do? Even a dream can do that, right?"

Lightning prods at her jaw. "Yeah, but I doubt a dream can deliver quite that hard a punch." Fang's seriousness melts into a smile.

"Yeah, well, I doubt your hallucinations have had my extensive training." Fang preens a bit.

"Let's hope not!" And Lightning snorts while Fang chuckles a bit.

"Seriously, I can't make you sure. But we can go back and you can see for yourself." Fang pats her bad shoulder softly.

"You know, that really isn't going to do much either anymore," Lightning admits. Because while she's pretty sure she's been talking to the real and actual Fang for the past...however long it's been, the truth is she isn't positive. The dream where executioners were peeling skin from her lover had felt just as real. She'd felt the pain of her joints dislocating, she'd smelled the blood and feces and vomit on the air. She's felt the squish of intestines between her fingers as surely as she feels the sling biting into her neck and collarbone.

She'd heard the screams of the dying, tasted the blood of the living and enjoyed every minute of her vengeance.

Every. Minute.

"The line has been pretty clear before now, you know. _**Dream**__._ **Reality**. And maybe I didn't know that I was dreaming while I was dreaming, but I knew it pretty immediately once I woke up." She runs her fingers through her sticky hair and spends an insane minute thinking that if this were a dream, she'd be damned sure she wouldn't smell foul and have greasy hair, before realizing that the idea is absurd. Moreover, it's pointless. If she had that sort of control over her dreams, she'd just pull herself out of them. "I don't know why it's gotten so screwed. Maybe it's all this relentless darkness."

_Maybe I'm more Cie'th than human. _She thinks of the creature trapped forever with the memory of its own failure; the insanity that had permeated every inch of its focus.

Fang nods. "That's very possible, you know. No delineation between day and night, no real sleep or food. Constant stress. Those can all screw with a person's sense of perception. Pretty easy to slip into madness that way." Lightning has a near overwhelming urge to hug Fang for being supportive, even if they both know she's grasping here. Fang puts a finger under Lightning's chin and says, "But look." She directs Lightning's gaze upwards. "See where the ceiling meets the walls over there? Those are windows."

Lightning stares for a moment until her brain catches up. Then she sees that at the juncture where ceiling meets wall there is a row of high arching windows giving the impression of a sweeping wall of glass. There are panels of what might be stained glass at the apex of the dome. Lightning could tell that there was another light source in the room; how she hadn't noticed that the light source was everywhere in the room baffles her. She can only blame her stress and exhaustion.

But now that she sees the windows, she realizes that she can see the stars shining through them. Millions of sparkles scattered through the darkness like diamonds. The sky is turning a deep blue from the pitch of night in a sure sign of the approaching dawn. In another hour or two (tops) the sun will rise, and they'll see daylight again. She wonders how she hadn't noticed already before deciding that she doesn't care. Lightning smiles and Fang whispers, "We're out of the dark now. You found us a real interesting shortcut. A few hours and we'll be outside. How's that for good news?"

Lightning smiles, nods and then asks, "Outside where?"

Fang heaves a sigh. "Guess we're all going to find out together, aren't we?" Fang hooks a hand through Lightning's elbow and leads her out of the library from her dreams, steering her towards her fears.

* * *

Lightning's anxiety increases with each step back to the camp. There is a tightening in her gut accompanied by a pounding aching pain in her chest. She feels a bit dizzy and wonders if she'll get lucky enough to pass out before she reaches the camp.

She's panicking.

She is reasonably certain that what she is experiencing now is reality. She can hear the clacking of her boots on the marble tiles. She hears the swish of the trap door swinging closed behind them. She can smell the dank mosses of the cavern. She can feel the difference in the air as she transitions from the building to the cavern; the temperature differential, the humidity shift. Her senses all tell her that she is awake; that what she is experiencing now is reality.

That would be fine if she could trust any of her senses.

As things now stand, she cannot. Certainly she can smell the moss that grows throughout the cavern. But she can also smell fear that is assuredly hours or even days old. She can hear the cadence of her footsteps against marble, then against limestone. But she can also hear insects and vermin crawling inside and behind the walls. She can feel the humidity increase as she moves, but she can also feel an immense sorrow housed within the confines of the corridor.

Her body is no longer her own. Her senses more closely resemble those of an animal than a woman these days. So how then can she trust anything her mind discerns?

She shakes herself from her maudlin thoughts as they approach the campsite. From her position behind Fang, Lightning cannot see the campsite. Her new heightened senses can, however, detect four different breathing patterns. **Four.** Something in her untwists, unknots and she feels like she might float away or collapse. Or both, each in turn.

She decides that either she had not imagined finding Snow and Hope, or she still walks in a fantasy world. If the former, then she can finally allow herself to feel the long sought after relief. If the latter, then she hopes to never again walk in the real world. She cannot face losing them again.

The thought brings her up short. Apparently she is a coward, after all.

Sazh is awake when they stroll back into the camp and he looks relieved and peeved in equal measures. Seeing him awake and alert lifts a weight she hadn't realized was pressing down upon her as she is reminded of his stubborn refusal to rouse from slumber.

Of course, she's pretty certain that didn't happen at all. Sazh hadn't been snoring in deep sleep anymore than Fang had been missing in the cavern. How then she'd managed to sneak out of their camp undetected remains a mystery.

Doubt creeps back in. Perhaps she isn't awake now. Perhaps she will never return to the real world. Perhaps her friends are long gone. Maybe she'd never really woken from the cave in. Maybe she's hallucinated everything since she'd slipped into that waking dream out on the Archylte Steppe. Perhaps all her friends are dead. Or perhaps she walks among them now, lost to them, never again to hear their voices. She may be in a catatonic state, living in the twisted landscape of her growing insanity. Each scenario frightens her because in all situations, they are equally lost to her.

In all, she is lost.

She twitches once and shakes her head. Such meanderings serve no purpose but to drive her further into madness. She must put the thoughts from her mind.

"Everything alright?" Sazh asks, directing the question to Fang. Lightning is happy for any diversion from her thoughts. He looks skittish as he approaches, and Lightning wonders if their friendship has taken another step backwards. He once again has the 'Lightning-might-eat-my-liver' look on his face. She's fairly certain he will not trust her with his back again anytime soon.

While she's sad, she's not offended. She's not sure she trusts herself with his back either.

Fang nods, shrugs, then shakes her head. "As well as they can be considering, I suppose."

"Considering what?" Sazh asks and then looks back at Lightning. Maybe he thinks that Lightning has eaten Fang's liver.

"Look-y what we've found," Fang sing songs and holds up the book. Sazh looks astonished, awed and anxious. He reaches out to take it but Fang snatches it back. "Not yet. We've got too much ground to cover before we give into what may prove to be unfortunate curiosity."

Sazh looks as confused as Lightning feels but doesn't question Fang's decision. Lightning finds herself irritated at Fang's insistence on controlling the book and the flow of information. Her fists curl and she wants to tear the book from Fang's hands and beat her to death with it if necessary. She is certain that the knowledge that lays within the book is hers. It is her destiny and she finds Fang's interference absurd. The world tints a strange shade of red, fills with a pounding noise. Her whole body aches and tenses, fingernails slicing into her palms. She licks her lips, tastes blood and realizes how close she is to slipping off the razor edge she's been walking. She closes her eyes, inhales a shuddering breath, exhales it and finds the anger abolished.

The impulses are getting stronger, and they are hitting her with quick precision. She's losing her humanity by leaps and bounds now. The time for answers and decisions is at hand. Fang will need to step aside or get trampled.

The part of Lightning that would prefer the latter option is alarmingly vast now.

"You alright then, Soldier?" Sazh says. He's close enough to startle her. She flinches and closes her eyes at his proximity. When she opens them again, he is examining her with a wary and appraising eye. He winces when he notices the blossoming bruise along her jaw line. "Youch," he exclaims. "What happened to you?"

Lightning shoots Fang a pointed look. Fang doesn't even look mildly apologetic for the knock down sucker punch. Instead she flashes all of her teeth in a devious parody of a smile and winks. Lightning feels her lip curl up, but can't decide if it's in amusement or distaste. When she finally looks back at Sazh, she sees that he's worked out the answer for himself.

"Real nice," he scolds Fang. "First you break her ribs, then you punch her? There is something very wrong with you, woman. You know that?" He shakes his head.

"She asked me to," Fang explains. Lightning doesn't even have a chance at mustering up her outrage at the bald faced lie.

"You are they lying-est Liar I have ever met!" Sazh says, walking away from both of them with his arms folded. Fang trails along with him, determined to prove her case to him and dispute his claims that she's lying.

Even if she is a liar.

Lightning leaves Sazh and Fang to their bizarre dance and turns toward her sleeping companions. Snow hasn't shifted position in the hours since she's seen him. Either Sazh is the liar, and he really did hit Snow with a rock, or the 'Hero' had needed some serious sleep. Considering Sazh hasn't lied to her yet, she's going with the latter option.

Hope is curled onto his side now, hand flung out carelessly toward Snow, exhalations puffing out in soft whistles and gusts. She limps her way toward them, steps around Snow and does her best to settle between them without disturbing their rest. She uses the wall to ease herself down, feels scabs along her back pulling uncomfortably as she leans against the stone wall. The ground is damp and uncomfortable beneath her bare thighs, the wall rough against her sore back.

She can feel all the aches and pains complaining at once. Her back is a mess of cuts and slices, she knows. The stitches under her arm itch and burn and Lightning has to consciously divert her fingernails from the nuisance. She lifts the arm to get a look at the sutures and is surprised to find the wound nearly sealed.

_Being a monster has its advantages, it seems._

Another day and the wound will be healed. Lightning can see the skin around it turning grayish, but she finds it doesn't really bother her. She really doesn't mind the physical changes anymore. She has no real illusions about how this mess is going to turn out. She lowers her arm and shifts around a bit to get comfortable before giving up the task as useless. She positions her sling so her arm rests across her ribs and then diverts herself by running her fingers through Hope's thick hair.

She's no longer worried about this being a hallucination. It is a useless fear that has done nothing but make her crazy. Instead she reaches for the peace and contentment that she feels she deserves.

It remains stubbornly out of her reach.

There is still a nagging anxiety germinating within her. She traces the shell of Hope's ear. What is wrong with her? (Aside from the obvious). She should be contented now. She should be eager to speak with them, to be reunited at last after they've all fought their way through hell to get back to one another.

And there, she thinks, is the crux of her problem.

She has spent so much time and energy wanting and anticipating the reunion, insisting aloud that Snow and Hope would be fine while internally fearing the worst. There is so much stress surrounding these two people in her mind and her heart now that she isn't sure how to begin to disentangle it from her affection. And now, as she watches them sleep she realizes that she has no idea what to say to them. There are apologies that bubble up that quite probably make no sense, and promises that she needs to make that she's uncertain will be welcome.

There are so many things that she'd left unsaid before and she's unsure if she can or will say them now. Their separation has been a blink of an eye in the span of their lives, but in that blink, more has happened than she can recount, not the least of which is that Hope has faced down the Grim Reaper. He's stared straight into the dark abyss of death, flirted with the edge and very nearly plunged in. She'd promised him that she would always protect him.

Turns out she is nothing if not a spectacular failure.

Everyone she'd ever loved, she has failed. She'd failed to find any way to save her parents; she'd left her sister to fall victim to the fal'Cie, let her turn to crystal; she'd taken Hope into her life and heart, swore to protect his life with her own. She can safely say now that she has had nothing to do with Hope's survival. Snow has played guardian angel. Had it not been for him, Hope would be lost. She casts her eyes to the sleeping blond.

And what of him?

She longs for an explanation of the vast bloodstain upon the floor, but she knows that she will never speak of it. Some say that to name a fear is the first step in conquering it. Perhaps that is true. But her truest fear is that she will name her fear, ask the question, and Snow will disappear like so much vapor in the morning sun. She's terrified that speaking of her certainty of his death will make that fear a reality. After all, she's still not certain if this is indeed reality or a particularly vivid hallucination.

She sniffles once, feels tears overflow and cascade from her eyes. She needs to pull herself together now. She pulls her knees up, presses her face to them. They will both wake soon and she needs to snap from her melancholy before that happens. She can't be a blubbering mess when they reunite.

"Sis?" Snow grunts into her ear. She lifts her head from the cradle of her knees, wipes the running tears and bubbling snot _(classy move, Lightning)_ on her forearm and glances over at him. "That really you?"

She snorts at the question. She can't help it. He has no idea what a loaded question he's just asked. Snow presses himself up onto hands and knees and reaches for her with shaking fingers. She takes hold of his hand before it makes contact, feels the vibrations rattling through them as he clenches his hand around hers.

"I thought..." he swallows, drops her hand and scoots next to her. He sits beside her, back to the stone wall, hands clutching at his knees. He's twitching beside her, but she leaves him to it. She slides her feet, stretches her legs out until they are flat on the ground, crossed at the ankle. The new position puts strain on injuries but she doesn't care. Her coiled posture had been too defensive in nature. She feels the heat of him radiating along her sore right arm, but he seems to have gone out of his way not to touch her. "It doesn't matter what I thought."

She wants to argue the point. There are few things that matter to her more than his thoughts. One glance at his wan complexion silences her, tells her that he's right. What they'd thought (and it's apparent they'd both had similar assumptions) doesn't matter. The could-haves, would-haves and should-haves are of no consequence. They don't have to wonder 'what if' anymore because they have been granted an amazing gift. They have been given a second chance.

"There's something...that I want to say." His voice is grave and serious and so unlike Snow that it sets her teeth on edge. She keeps her eyes fixed on Hope and tries to push the anxiety away. Snow sounds broken; sounds as if the events of the past days have left him irrevocably altered. The thought gets her stomach churning around an acidic nausea. "Something," he continues, "that I've spent the past...however long wishing that I had said..."

She glances at him from the corner of her eye. He's pale and shaking, and she wants nothing more than to shove something in his mouth to keep him quiet. She can't hear these words, whatever they are. She restrains herself from physically quieting him, just says, "Don't." He looks as startled as she feels. She feels awful for refusing to let him speak his piece, but part of her knows that she will feel worse if she allows him to say unspeakable things. "Whatever it is you have to say...please don't. It's a confession for a dead woman." He looks away from her and she takes his left hand from its perch on his knee and laces their fingers together.

"What I mean to say is...there's nothing that you need to say to me, Snow. We're family and I know everything that matters." She hadn't known she was going to say it, but once the words are out, she realizes that they're true. She feels lighter. He finally looks at her and she can see a pale shadow of the Snow she knows in the look. He's finally coming back to her and she is so happy to see him she wants to break out into irritating show tunes-like she's living in a crappy musical instead of a crappy horror flick. She smiles at him. "Just like you know everything that matters. We-the two of us-have nothing left unsaid. Alright? It's not something you'll ever need to worry about. Not now. And not ever again."

He looks put out by her declaration, like she's stolen his thunder and yanked the rug out from under him at once. But beneath the annoyance lurks relief. He looks so very relieved! Because while she has stolen his thunder, she's also given him peace of mind-something they've both been sorely lacking for the past few days. Hell, for the past two months! Maybe for their whole lives, who knows? Snow nods at her once and tightens his grip on her fingers. He looks at her like he believes her.

She settles back to listen to the quiet sounds of Hope's breathing.

"I do have something I need to say though," Snow says and she sighs. He's never been able to just shut up and let things lie. He's worse than a dog with a bone and she knows that she'll have no peace until she agrees to listen to whatever he has to say.

"Go ahead," she groans and closes her eyes, bracing for the sappy, crippling horror of whatever Snow feels obligated to share.

"You look like crap, Sis!" She barks out a shocked laugh and turns to see a hint of his crooked smile. She's too astonished to do more than gape at him as he says, "I mean seriously! Look at you! What the hell happened to you? I leave you alone for...what? A day? Two, tops!" He clutches her hand and lifts it up to get a better view of the damage. "You look like Gran Pulse chewed you up and spit you back out. I told the kid you were lousy at taking care of yourself but does he listen to me? NO-OO." She's belly laughing at him now and it hurts every part of her badly damaged anatomy. She can't bring herself to care while Snow is parroting Hope. "He's all, 'Lightning can do anything! She's my hero, Snow. And you're a dumb blond!"

She can barely get enough breath to say, "He did not say that!"

"You bet your ass he did!" Snow declares, totally serious and Lightning feels her broken ribs protesting with each inhalation.

"Speaking of my ass," Lightning says, thrilled at this unsought levity, "Sazh says mine is fat." Snow's whole face twists into one of mock horror. This is what she's missed the most. His ability to make everything better. Even when things can never be better.

"That's...there's..." He looks over to see if he can spot Sazh before saying, "And I missed it? Is he alright? What did you do to him?" Sazh is off with Fang somewhere, no doubt getting a firsthand account of the growing threat and Lightning's descent into madness.

"Shut. Up." Hope whimpers and Lightning gasps in a breath at the first sound of his voice. He sounds whiney and bitchy but just so wonderfully alive. His voice is the sweetest thing she's ever heard despite its nasal tinge and biting tone. She feels tears pooling in her eyes and a lump growing in her throat. "Don't you ever stop talking?"

"Nope," Snow says without missing a beat. He ruffles Hope's hair and one of Hope's arms flails out to swat him away like a fly. "About time you woke up!"

Hope spits out a curse that shocks Lightning. Snow chuckles at it.

"Nice language, kid." Hope clenches his eyes shut and throws a one fingered salute at Snow. _Where did he learn that?_ "And look who finally showed up!"

"Don't. Care." He curls into a tighter ball. "Need. Sleep. Shut UP!"

"He reminds me of Serah when she was his age," Lightning whispers. "She never wanted to wake up either."

Hope's eyes fly open and he tries to spring up. Snow is faster than her at getting a hand on his shoulder to hold him down. "Easy there, kid." Snow is on his knees beside Hope, one hand holding him in place, the other over his freshly healed injury. There's still a lot of fear there. He telegraphs it in every move he makes. Lightning can relate. "Let's take this real slow. Alright?"

Hope smacks at Snow's hands and Snow just snorts at him and counts to three before pulling Hope vertical. Hope has forgotten all his proclamations about needing sleep. He seems to have forgotten his exhaustion and his morning hatred for Snow.

"Light," he whispers. It's more breath than anything, and from his lips, it almost sounds like a prayer.

"Hey Hope," she says. Her voice is soft and clogged with emotion, but she doesn't mind. The final knot within her untwists.

Hope hurls himself at her with enough force to rattle her busted ribs. She winces and Snow gasps. Hope just trembles against her, mutters wet, sobbing words at the juncture of shoulder and neck. She puts her good arm around him and holds on hard. She feels jagged knot of his shoulder blade pressed into her forearm, the knobs of his spine against her fingertips. Snow scoots back next to her, puts a hand on Hope's back and one around Lightning's shoulders.

And for a moment, they get to be a family again.

Hope mutters a constant litany of unintelligible nonsense into her collarbone and she smoothes a hand through his hair, feels the last of the fear slough off like dead skin. There's a peace welling within her now, here in the circle of their makeshift family and she's reluctant to break it. Still, she needs to know what he's saying. She hums a questioning, "huh?" at Hope and he backs off a bit, leaving a moist spot from a combination of spit and tears against her skin. It cools and dries when the air brushes against it.

"I knew it," he chokes, swallows. Snow pats his back and Hope and Snow share a knowing nod. "I knew it," Hope repeats.

"Knew what?" Lightning is lost. She meets Snow's eyes over Hope's head but the 'Hero' is unreadable. He gives nothing away.

Hope looks at her with wide, adoring eyes. "I knew you'd come for me." He presses his face back to her neck and lets out one shuddering sob. "I knew it."

She tightens her grip on Hope and makes a promise that she hopes she'll never have to break even as she knows that one day she will.

"I'll always come for you, Hope."

* * *

TBC...  
Action ahead! And more answers! (I'm getting to the crux here, I swear it).

So, no cliffhanger this time! I have to admit, this chapter was difficult to write because I was trying to figure out how to deal with the reunion. It's been 7 chapters since I split them up, but probably about 150 pages. So, figuring how to handle it was tough.

Let me know what you think.


	22. Something Wicked This Way Comes

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or world. Final Fantasy XIII and its characters are the property of Square Enix, et al.

Warning: There are implications of rape in this chapter. They are only IMPLICATIONS. You may not even realize that's what is being implied simply because I NEVER use the word or describe the act. Still, it is a terrible enough implication that it deserves a warning. I do promise there is nothing graphic about it. At all. The other violence...is much less graphic than I've written in previous chapters, but still there.

* * *

"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."  
-Friedrich Nietzsche

-Something Wicked this Way Comes-

The explosion from the darkness takes Lightning by surprise.

One minute she's basking in some hard earned peace and the next, the ground shakes, the walls rumble, and silt pours into her eyes from newly formed cracks overhead.

A pebble smacks her hard right at the crown of her head. She flinches, hears the thud as a dull echo, feels the smart pain blossom at the point of impact. She rubs absently at the sting for a moment before her brain catches up as to why this is **so very wrong**.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Snow mumbles and pulls Hope out of Lightning's arms to jerk him to his feet. Snow clamps a big hand around her right bicep and pulls her to her feet with one mighty yank. Her shoulder howls at the strain but the adrenaline flowing through her acts like an anesthetic. She barely has her feet below her when Snow starts dragging her.

"Wait! Hope?" Lightning gropes around her trying to find the boy's hand in the darkness.

"I got him." Snow says.

"You're hurting me!" Hope snarls at Snow. She's disoriented again from all the darkness, so it takes her a moment to realize that he's heading away from the exit that she's just found.

She pulls up short and plants her feet, bringing everyone up with a jolt. Her torn and battered body gives out one shrieking protest to the abuse. She ignores it and yells, "WAIT!" She twists grabs a hold onto him instead and starts dragging Snow over the rolling floor toward the hidden entrance.

"Where the hell are you going?"

"I found a way out!" She snaps as she runs her hands over the wall, searching for the hidden switch.

"And you're just mentioning this now?" Snow sounds like he's just passed incredulous and is now speeding down the road towards pissed off.

"I was busy," she mumbles, although she cannot figure out why she's explaining herself to him. They don't have time to bicker now.

She is frantic as she slides her hand over the wall searching for the switch. The last time she'd found this door, she had been hallucinating. Or walking in a dream. Her fingers catch on it and she presses, hears the door swing open. Her eyes water from the daylight pouring through the doorway and she yells, "Go!"

Hope flinches at the light, but he somehow manages to look elated as well. Lightning wishes she had time to bask in his joy, but they need to get the hell out of this cave. His takes one step forward but glances backwards with an uncertain look. Lightning feels like tapping her foot in her irritation. "But...what about the others? What about Vanille?" He stands his ground, puts up a brave front. "I'm..." his voice wobbles. "I'm not leaving without them."

Warm pride and cold fear fill her in equal measures. That scared child who'd cowered on the crystal of Lake Bresha and whined about his fate; that green kid who'd followed her through the Vile Peaks vanished. In less than three months, Hope has grown up into a warrior.

Lightning feels a bit sick.

She admires his courage. She refuses to allow him to endanger himself again. She casts a look back toward the rumbling darkness. She has no intention of abandoning her companions to the darkness, but she's not about to tell Hope that right now. Not ten minutes after their reunion. She casts a pleading look at Snow who nods at her and scoops Hope off his feet and braces him over his shoulder.

"Sorry Kid," Snow says and sounds sincere. There's no hint of his usual condescension. He sees what Lightning sees and is probably just as impressed.

"Hey! Wait a minute!" Hope yells, affronted at the manhandling. Hope kicks out and Snow grunts in pain when one sneakered foot hits him in the ribs. She watches Snow walk into the room before reaching over and closing the trap door.

"Lightning!" Snow yells at her. She winces at the anger and worry in the tone. She rests her head against the stone and wonders if fate will really be this cruel. If she's found them again only to have them for a few moments. She sniffs hard and stands straight.

If this is her fate, so be it. They are safe and that is all that matters.

"Keep Hope safe!" She shouts through the door and takes off into the darkness to find her friends.

She's not sure what Snow yells back at her but she's pretty certain it's nothing complimentary. And possibly involves bodily injury.

Her body's injuries all wake up at once and remind her just how much she does not need any new additions right now. Her bum arm bangs against her injured ribs as she lopes through the darkness. She groans at the pain, grits her teeth in aggravation and stops moving. She presses herself against a wall and roughly pulls the makeshift sling over her head and flings it into the darkness. _Won't be needing that anymore. _She bends and flexes her arm for a moment, feels the pull of stitches and hopes the damn thing doesn't reopen now. She has no desire to bleed to death in the next few minutes. She checks her weapon, makes sure she hasn't lost it in all the insanity, and then moves hand over hand along the wall through the darkness.

She hears voices ahead, Vanille yelling, "Oh yeah?" accompanied by the smell of magic. Lightning can see the flickering orange of a torch glowing ahead. Lightning moves toward the light and sounds of battle when the ground shakes again and topples her onto her knees. She hits the ground hard and bites her tongue in the jarring blow. The pain makes her eyes tear, the taste of blood stirs up senses that she'd rather ignore. She holds onto the floor until the shaking abates, swallows down the mouthful of blood, pushes back onto her feet and runs toward the sounds of combat.

Lightning rounds a bend in time to watch Fang take a hard hit from...an Eidolon?

"What the hell?" Lightning says and runs forward. This Eidolon is like nothing she's ever encountered. It moves with a speed that even her namesake might envy. It is no taller than Odin, but it has what looks like wings fluttering around it. It has weapons and magic attacks. It moves like a natural born predator.

It's like nothing Lightning has ever seen.

Sazh lays unconscious on the floor, blood running in a steady stream from a gash on his forehead. Lightning keeps her eyes on the attacking Eidolon as she bends beside Sazh to press two fingers to his throat. His pulse is steady and strong and she blows out a relieved breath. She looks at Fang and Vanille and determines that they are holding their own for now. Sazh needs to be her priority. He's in mortal peril while he's unconscious on the floor of their 'battle field.' She looks at the enemy praying that it hasn't noticed her yet. The creature continues its onslaught against Fang and Vanille without sparing her a second glance. She sees her chance to get her friend to safety and takes it.

She hooks Sazh under both arms and drags him backwards, working to get him clear as quickly as possible. Sazh groans at the movement; the chocobo chick warks from the nest of Sazh's hair. Lightning freezes as the Eidolon twists toward the sounds and narrows predatory eyes at her. She releases Sazh and flinches when he hits the ground with a dull thud. The baby chocobo squawks indignantly and she winces at the ruckus before dismissing all distraction. If she wants to protect Sazh (and his baby chocobo) and save herself, she needs to 'put her helmet on and get in the game' here, as her father used to say. She can't afford to worry if she's given Sazh another concussion by dropping him on his head. (She glances down at him and cringes at the blood pooling around his head before refocusing her attention.) This Eidolon will give no quarter.

Excellent. It seems she and the monster understand one another.

She stands and pulls her weapon in one move. She opens fire on the Eidolon, figuring that the wings will be a good weak spot. She empties her Edged Carbine at the wings, waiting to see them tear apart under the barrage. The wings shift and move, fluttering to and fro. She stops firing and stares at the creature, amazed and terrified that not one shot has found its mark. Her mouth hangs open stupidly but she can't manage to close it. Law of averages would dictate that at least some of her shots would have connected. Her grades in marksmanship would argue that better than seventy-five percent of her shots should have found their mark. Yet the Eidolon stands there untouched.

The odd wings twitch once; then the monster gives her something akin to a smile before calling up a spell that shakes the ground beneath her feet. She throws herself to the side and watches the ground split open and send a piece of rock shooting up from the hole like an extending claw. She stares at the newly formed two meter tall stalagmite with wide eyes and spends a moment calculating the size of the protrusion and the distance between it and her. She's managed to dodge it by less than a meter. A half second slower and she'd have been impaled. She was pretty sure that nothing could surprise her anymore.

_Live and learn, _she thinks, although the living part is debatable at this point. She hadn't thought she could be surprised, but it's not the first time she's been wrong on this journey and she's pretty certain that it won't be the last time. Unless, of course, she dies right here and now.

She hears creaking and looks up, sees a fine network of cracks spider webbing across the ceiling. Death is becoming a distinct probability. She feels her stomach bottom out at the familiar sight, wonders if she's as pale as she feels. She dismisses all thoughts as superfluous. They need to deal with this Eidolon now and get the hell out of this cavern before it collapses on top of them. Again! She rolls back to her feet, positions herself between the threat and her unconscious friend. Then something unexpected happens.

The wings begin firing weapons and hurling objects at her.

Lightning drops flat, lands on top of Sazh with an oomph, grabs hold of the lapels of his coat and rolls. And rolls. And rolls again until she feels the wall at her back. Each pass of Sazh rolling on top of and over her causes her ribs to howl and her shoulder to spasm. The Eidolon continues hurling things at her and a few pieces of shrapnel kicked up from the stones strike and embed in the flesh of her legs and back. She's too hopped up on adrenaline and fear to feel more than a slight sting with each strike. She climbs onto her knees and maneuvers Sazh until he's pressed face first against the wall. There's no cover to be found. She hopes that if she can keep his face, neck and torso protected that his clothes will provide enough protection for the rest of him from debris. Nothing will protect him from a direct assault.

Except her.

She plants herself between the monster and her friend and climbs back to her feet. She draws her weapon and finds herself the target of another attack. She rolls under the projectiles and comes up firing, once again taking aim at the creature's wings. They flicker and dodge faster than hummingbird wings. She wonders why the damn creature hasn't taken flight with that much movement. She cannot comprehend how it is possible that none of her shots have hit. She stops firing and stares at the creature, awed and dumbfounded: everything flutters, shutters and flexes; and that's when she sees that they aren't wings at all.

They are hands. Dozens of hands, each one capable of launching an attack.

"Holy Hell!" Lightning breathes. They have enough problems fighting the two handed Eidolons! How are they supposed to defeat one with fifty hands?

The Eidolon gives her what can only qualify as an evil smirk before whirling on Fang and delivering three devastating attacks in a row. Fang has her guard up as the creature rains blows down on her, so the monster doesn't deliver a mortal wound or kill shot. But Fang slumps after the attack, cradling her ribs while blood pours from her nose onto the ground below. Lightning glances back at the still unconscious Sazh, then back at Fang. Fang is working to get back to her feet, using her Bladed Lance as a lever and a crutch, but Lightning can see that she is badly dazed. Lightning spends a moment willing Fang to pull herself together and get her guard back up before the Eidolon kills her where she kneels. The monster gives Lightning a sly smirk that stuns her stupid. All illusions that she's had about Eidolons having nothing like human emotion disintegrate; she knows that monster just **taunted** her. It spins and whirls again, aiming multiple hands armed with multiple weapons at Fang.

Lightning abandons her protective position over Sazh and full body tackles Fang. She hits her hard with a shoulder to the solar plexus just as the other woman gains her feet. She takes Fang clean off her feet again and throws both of them clear of the 'blast zone.' Fang gasps for breath and gropes for the weapon that skittered from her fingers when she hit the ground. Lightning curls over her disoriented friend and waits for the pain of impalement. She feels the breeze from the hurled projectiles stir the air above her. She inhales a deep breath, counts to three, exhales...

...and she's on her feet running behind the attacking Eidolon. She fires rounds at it and moves, shoots and moves, working to draw the attacks at herself. She's not in tip top shape, but she's still the fastest member of their little group. There is no way of 'defeating' the Eidolon per se, but they can wear it down until (her brain trips for a minute before coming up with the answer) Vanille can get it under control.

She continues playing moving target, firing on the run like some sort of old movie gangster in a fedora and pinstriped suit, when the monster whirls on her. It tracks her for a moment before taking aim with what appears to be ALL ITS ARMS. Lightning doesn't pause to consider that she may have bitten off far more than she can chew here. She's pretty certain that she most definitely has as fifty projectiles launch at her at once.

Time slows in an odd suggestion of an adrenaline dump. The edges of reality become sharper, as if everything has been flattened into a two dimensional cartoon with a thick black edge. Her body tingles, every nerve ending prepared to react to instinct and impulse. She lets her thoughts go, hands the reins over to her animal instincts and hopes that they, at least, can still be trusted.

She's not even aware of dropping flat until she's pressed up against damp rock with all the intimacy of a lover; cheek, breasts, arms, belly, thighs, knees, and insteps all press hard and tight against the stone of the floor as if she's actually attempting to merge with the ground on a molecular level. She feels a flare of pain through her right shoulder blade, hears the whistle of passing projectiles as they fly overhead, pitch changing as they pass. They clatter and bang off the cave wall behind her, breaking rocks off from the wall and ceiling.

Threatening the structural integrity of the cave.

Memories of cave ins flitter through her mind. Surviving the last one was a miracle. She is under no delusion that they'll survive a second.

"We've got to get out of here!" Lightning whispers, a secret between herself and the ground, as she presses back up onto her feet. She changes tactics from out and out physical assault, touches her brand in an unnecessary token gesture to tap her magic. The brand flares to life and she can feel the magic pulsate through her body. She lets her mind go blank, surrenders her body back over to her instincts. The magic heats her, fuels her, drives her.

Her Edged Carbine is in her hand and she has no memory of drawing it.

She moves faster than she's ever moved. The world blurs around her as she slides through the Eidolon's legs and swipes a hit at the backs of its knees. She whirls and hits it again across the back, flips over it as it spins around to hit her and takes another shot at its head. Her muscles thrum and her nerves sing with magical intensity. The feeling is intoxicating as she whips around the Eidolon to strike over and over.

More magic crackles through the air and Lightning feels herself flush. She's enthralled, drunk with magic and power in a way she's never experienced. There's a buzzing in her head and a warmth spilling through her like molten rock. Every inch of skin tingles in a foreign, pleasant way. Lightning can feel the breeze from Fang's Bladed Lance as it strikes the Eidolon's back. She can smell Vanille's magic as it lights across the powerful creature before them. She can taste the power sizzling on the air as the Eidolon turns to Vanille and accepts defeat. It bows to Vanille's ownership and fades away.

Lightning casts looks from Vanille to Fang and back. They are all sweaty and out of breath and heated with triumph. The three of them all smile at once and Vanille giggles out, "Girl Power."

"Got that right, luv," Fang agrees. Lightning shakes her head at them but feels the giddiness bubbling up like warm champagne inside her.

The ceiling splinters. Dirt pours down over them.

The intoxication from victory vanishes in favor of pale, stark fear. Lightning looks back toward the exit then over towards where Sazh is still curled against the wall. Fang tracks her gaze and Lightning sees her eyes widen when they land on Sazh.

"Help me here!" Fang shouts and runs over to where Sazh is still unconscious and pushed face-first into the wall. Fang rolls him onto his back and begins patting him down. The ceiling lets out a threatening groan and Fang leans over Sazh to shield him from falling debris. Lightning eyes the ceiling for a moment, wondering if it is going to let loose the burden it has damned up for thousands and thousands of years onto their heads right now, or if fate will cut them a break for once.

A small chunk of ceiling drops to the ground beside her and explodes on impact. The combination of sound and feeling startles her enough to make her jump and spring into action. Vanille squeaks once as she fiddles to get her satchel across her body. Lightning meets her eyes. Lightning wonders if she looks as terrified as Vanille right then before deciding that if she doesn't, then she's obviously suffered some irreversible brain damage. Lightning stoops and pulls Sazh up by his arms as Vanille conjures a healing spell. Sazh stirs as the magic swirls through him, he cracks his eyes as Fang and Lightning get him vertical.

Lightning pulls his left arm across her shoulders and Fang does the same with his right. They move quicker than she'd have thought possible considering they are hauling Sazh's uncooperative dead weight through the cavern. The cave shakes again and the paltry torchlight disappears, leaving Lightning staring at speckles of spotted colors against the backdrop of pitch darkness. The raining debris has changed from silt to pebbles and now pelts them a steady pace. Lightning feels panic burgeoning from the familiarity of the entire situation. She hooks her thumb into Sazh's belt loop and moves.

Sazh lets his head hang forward and gags. His body stiffens and Lightning wonders if she's about get puked on. She wishes they could take the time to let Sazh heal properly but the cave is groaning and trembling like a sick old man. Lightning knows if they stop, they'll all die. She conjures a healing spell and sends it into Sazh. He goes limp and she hopes that, in her fear and haste, she hasn't done more harm than good. His head comes up and rests on her bad shoulder.

"Where're we goin'?" Sazh slurs in her ear.

"Just thought we'd take a little stroll," Fang quips, trying to keep her tone playful despite the danger.

"Wha's the rush then?" Sazh asks, turning his attention toward Fang. Lightning feels the cavern shudder and tugs him along harder. She glances over at him in the growing light. His eyes are glassy and he looks half stupid as he grins and says, "Always knew you ladies liked me."

Lightning wishes they had time to be amused right now, but considering the entire cavern is threatening to collapse on them AGAIN, she's keeps her mouth shut and just moves faster. Fang whispers, "Course we do. I keep telling you you're my very favorite Sazh."

"Lyin' wench," he mutters, good mood evaporated. Fang takes the insult in stride though, knowing full well that concussions cause mood swings. And that's one of their more pleasant symptoms.

Vanille leads the way and Lightning realizes exactly how foolish that is when the girl just stops walking, obviously confused and rattled. Fang, Lightning and Sazh have too much momentum to stop in time and Lightning plows into Vanille and sends the girl sprawling on her face with a yelp.

More shaking. More debris.

"I'm sorry Vanille," Lightning says, and she reaches down with her left hand to grab the girl by the back of her shirt and pulls. Vanille squeaks out a token protest. Lightning hears the seams of Vanille's shirt tear. Vanille lets out another indignant yelp but Lightning ignores it. Lightning just continues hauling Vanille to her feet and moving. She doesn't need special powers to know that they are running out of time here.

A loud crack reverberates through the cavern pouring even more silt, pebbles and full on, fist sized rocks down onto them.

"We need to get the hell out of here!" Fang rasps. "I'm not interested in being buried alive again. I think we've filled that quota for this journey, right?"

Lightning doesn't respond aloud but she can't help but agree. The way their luck has been running, however, Lightning figures their chances of actually beating the cave in are approaching zero. Lightning pulls harder with both arms until she realizes that there is no real resistance from her left hand. She figures that Vanille must have gained her feet again. She lets go of the girl's shirt and presses her palm between knobby shoulder blades, urging her onward. Vanille squeaks once in protest, says something under her breath that Lightning swears is a curse, and moves on.

Sazh flags between Lightning and Fang. His weight drags painfully at Lightning's wrenched shoulder as his body sags, head hanging low. Whatever assistance he's been providing up until that point disappears, leaving him to hang limp and heavy between the two women. Fang grunts under the added burden and Lightning realizes that she's probably hurt too.

"You alright?"

"Oh yeah!" Fang answers, tone dripping in sarcastic intolerance. "Just peachy." She pants for breath. "You?"

"I got it," Lightning sighs. "Stupid question."

"Hmmm," is Fang's only reply.

"Where are we going?" Vanille nearly whines. Lightning might be irritated if she didn't feel like doing some whining herself. Lightning looks up to get her bearings, realizes that she can see. Which means that they are close.

Lightning reaches deep into herself, into her most hidden reserves of strength. Her vision flickers, tinges with red. She takes a deep breath. Holds it. She yanks Sazh from Fang's grip, stoops and pulls him across her shoulders.

"What..." Fang starts.

"Get to the exit," Lightning rasps, hoping the other woman won't argue with her. This trick is going to take all her strength; there won't be any left over for arguing. She slips her right arm behind his Sazh's knee to hook it in her elbow, holds the back of his neck with her left hand as she maneuvers herself upright again. She nearly overbalances and falls, but she spreads her feet, bends her knees and gets a hold on Sazh's right hand with her own, locking him into place across her shoulders. She can feel his belt buckle dig painfully into her bruised and abused right shoulder. She twists the fingers of her left hand into the collar of his coat to add stability to her awkward fireman's carry. Sazh is taller and heavier than Lightning, and she's injured enough that the carry is both unwieldy and painful. She pushes her pain aside, gives it a mental 'middle finger,' and just moves.

She may no longer be Guardian Corp, but she hasn't forgotten her training. Never leave a man behind. She's always thought of that tenet as gospel. She's trained and conditioned. She knows how to carry a man twice her weight if necessary.

She moves slower than she'd like considering the impending cave in, but faster than she'd have expected considering the damage her body has already taken. She wonders if the magic that buffered her earlier still thrums through her, or if her body is just so soaked in adrenaline that she doesn't even notice it anymore. After all, she's spent far more time in 'fight or flight' mode than any other over the past few months. The pain from her shoulder is only outstripped by the burning-tearing-ripping across her back. She hopes that she hasn't reopened any major gashes as blood loss will only work against her at this point. She grits her teeth, puts her head down and moves. Sazh's left hand brushes against her left hip with each move and his left foot slams into her right knee painfully .

"Here!" Fang says from up ahead of her. Sweat pours into Lightning's eyes, and tears streak from the corners. The strain makes her nose run and she sniffles once and grits her teeth. Lightning doesn't look up; she just keeps moving slow and steady. Sunlight floods the tunnel, burning her eyes. But it also gives her a new burst of energy and makes a final hard push for the door. She nearly trips over her own feet as she approaches the exit. She hears the telltale cracking of ceiling above her, holds her breath and plunges forward. Rock dust chokes her as she crosses the threshold. As soon as limestone turns to marble she collapses to her knees and face-plants right onto the white tile.

She's unconscious before she can even think 'ouch.'

* * *

_She's never been so afraid in her life. Her heart pounds too fast, too hard. She's been running for what feels like forever now. The brand on her right bicep aches and burns all the time. She can feel it opening, consuming her. She can feel her will eroding, her sanity slipping. _

_She loathes being afraid; prefers to wrap herself in the comfort of anger. She sits hard upon the ground, hangs her head between her knees, laces her fingers on the back of her neck and just breathes. She needs to regain some sort of control over herself. She's running out of time. Shifting and moaning drift from her sleeping companion._

_Correction: They are running out of time._

_She hears the mob approaching. She whips her head up at the sounds of footfalls and shouting, falls to her knees and crawls toward the cave entrance. She looks down, sees the mob on the plateau below. She smirks at their stupidity. She's been hunting the wilds of Gran Pulse since she was a child. She knows the land, the animals, the plants as well as she knows her own flesh._

_Her pursuers have no chance of discovering her._

_A pain tears through her stomach like something is trying to claw its way free. She imagines that something is. She can almost see the monster she is becoming. She can feel the transformation taking place within her body. Every molecule of her feels foreign. Her skin looks like a patchwork quilt of some bizarre camouflage. She touches fingers to one of the patches of skin, feels the odd texture along with the unnatural heat. _

_The heat._

_She's so hot now, but not with fever. She knows that her temperature is far too high to be anything but alien. She's pretty certain that her core temperature would have been fatal if she'd hit it before she'd been branded like so much cattle. Her entire body and metabolism has been reset now. The abnormal temperature does not make her sweat, does not cause chills. She knows the truth. _

_She's not human. Not anymore._

_Her body spasms again and she doubles over. She can practically hear her organs twisting and spinning inside her body, rearranging themselves into some bizarre, inhuman configuration. She wonders if she'll remember anything once she turns; wonders if she'll still be herself trapped in a monster's body. Right now, she's not certain which is the scarier prospect: to know, or not to know. She thinks that is the REAL question. Because if her mind and soul survive the transformation, she imagines that her sanity never will. She thinks that to be conscious of the loss of humanity-the loss of all she is, was and could ever be-might be the thing that drives the Cie'th into total madness. _

_She's terrified._

_She glances at the figure curled inside a blanket on the floor of the cave and wonders if she'll remember _**her**_. _

_She shakes her head to dispel the depressing thoughts. She has enough problems now and depression can only push her even deeper into her metamorphosis. She closes her eyes, breathes slow and steady for a moment to regain some equilibrium. She counts her heartbeats, notes they are too many now. Too fast. Another side effect of transformation._

_A whimper pulls her from her pseudo-meditation. She reaches out to her companion, rubs over the pale arm, combs fingernails through tangled locks. She rests her hand on her friend's forehead, finds the skin waxy and clammy. She doesn't understand why their metamorphoses are taking such deviant routes. She feels like she's transforming while her companion just seems to be...fading._

Concede. You can save her and yourself if you fulfill your appointed task.

_The voice that was once so repugnant to her now sounds seductive. She's been a hunter for her whole life. She's no stranger to killing. She finds no problem with defending her life, her families' lives, her friends' lives. If she needs to kill in the process of that defense, so be it. Doing so has never made her happy, but she has done and will do it again if necessary. If the mob that pursues them catches them, she will defend herself and her companion to the last breath. But her focus will not just ask her to prove herself a killer._

_It will force her to become a murderer._

_"We can't," a weak, scratchy voice whispers into a makeshift pillow. Apparently she hears the same voices. "I can't. Can't kill all those people. I'd rather die." _

_"You are dying. You __**will**__ die," she replies, and the truth of the statement sickens her. She's known since the beginning that this burden would always be hers. She could never ask another to carry this cross, never ask her kindhearted friend to share this load. _

_Another cramp doubles her over. She lands on her hands and knees, panting at the stone of the cave floor. Blood pours from her nose, puddles below her. The next spasm makes her elbows give out. She gags, tastes bile and blood bubble up._

_"L'Cie scum!" The mob has found them. She feels the fear coil through her and spark adrenaline responses but she's too ill and too late. She tries to rise, but the next gag turns into a cough that doesn't end. She feels like she's turning inside out. Rough hands grab at her, drag her upright and force coiled, resistant muscles to move. She feels the scream tear from her throat but cannot hear anything over the roar of blood in her ears._

_Something strikes her in her gut, sends stabbing, throbbing pain firing through her changing body. She wonders why she couldn't develop an immunity to pain. If she's supposed to become some ultimate killing machine, shouldn't she be able to withstand a beating? She's ordered to her feet but she cannot comply. She's dragged then: brutal fingers press bruises into her arms. Someone draws a knife across her brand and she shrieks once, more from shock than actual pain. The brand sends an acidic burn through her veins and muscles. She's so hot now she feels as if she will immolate. Or shoot fire from her mouth and eyes. She chews on her lower lip to stifle any further sounds, but her captors have moved on to more entertaining quarry._

_She can hear her friend yelling and crying, but she doesn't see what is happening. She hears grunting and laughing, and icy fear and certainty fill her. She tries to confirm her horror but each movement she makes is greeted with a violent punch to her ribs and thick, filthy fingers twisting deeper and harder into her dark hair to yank. She can hear the hairs tearing, feel the scalp ripping and bleeding with the more vicious tugs. She's lost at least one fistful of hair by now. She spits out curses and gets punched. She spits out blood and gets kicked. She spits out promises and threats, fills them with all the murderous intent in her body; does her best to let them see the truth in her eyes. She waits for more pain. She sees only fear._

_She's dragged from the cave by her hair and thrown down into the crevasse below. The drop is better than eight meters. She hits flat on her stomach, feels already fractured ribs break on impact. She gasps, trying to inflate her empty lungs. She hears laughing around her but is too pained and weak to lift her head. Her brand is a steady burn on her arm, like someone has doused it with kerosene and set it aflame. She wants to roll, to get off her belly and onto her feet again but her body is broken and weak._

_She is dying, and is glad for it._

_She feels herself drifting and finds that she doesn't want to fight anymore. Death would be easier. It would be an end. She might not be a success, but she will be finished. She closes her eyes._

_She hears whimpering amidst the laughter. The sound rouses her. She can't be finished yet. She's made promises. She has obligations! She needs to get up off her ass (or her face, really) and do something. Whimpers turn to frantic cries and she moves her broken body, hears the grate of bone on bone as she seeks the source. She turns her head, catches sight of the mob of men. They surround the crying girl in the middle, each one prodding and poking, hitting and pawing. She sees one of them holding a rope, tying a noose in one end and tossing it over an overhead tree branch._

_'String 'er up,' one yells. Laughter and cheers answer the savage call._

_The pain disappears in favor of rage. All thoughts of her death vanish. Instead, she can only see their deaths. And what a death she will give them! She looks at her arm, sees the red and black of her brand swell and flourish, ready to consume her. She needs to stop this desecration. This insanity!_

_She knows now that she not only can fulfill her focus, but that she wants to do it. She wants nothing more than destroy these men, their homes, their families, their progeny. She wants to wipe their existence from the history of history. _

_The rope pulls taut and her friend is lifted into the air, gasping and choking. Blood shot blue green eyes meet hers before closing in pain. Her pale, creamy face turns red from the restricted circulation, tinting purple with lack of oxygen. Bruised, swollen lips open in a gasp for breath as she slowly twists and strangles to death._

_She reaches, feels herself stand, feels muscles twist and bulge and unspool. Colors return to the world in a bright explosion. The pain from before is dwarfed by this new agony, but the entirety of her being is focused on rescue and revenge._

_The world explodes as she screams out "Vanille!"_

* * *

Lightning surfaces from the dream as panicked as a drowning victim. She bolts upright, eyes wide and unseeing as she grabs at her throat, her chest. Her brand.

It burns and throbs, and for a moment she's certain that it will incinerate her.

"Sis?" Snow kneels beside her. She flinches from his voice and her head spins. Her balance and strength disappear and she finds herself swooning and plummeting backwards. Snow hooks an arm around her back to stop her from hitting the floor again. He braces her up and asks, "You okay?"

She shakes her head but can't answer. Her eyes rove over her companions until they land on Vanille. She feels her heart slow, her panic fade.

"Vanille," she whispers and the girl meets her eyes. She looks curious and maybe a bit nervous but otherwise unfazed. She gives her most dazzling smile, giggles once and turns her attention back to a woozy Sazh, who sits patiently patting the baby chocobo as Vanille winds bandages around his half healed head wound. "Vanille," she mouths the name this time, sees Vanille shiver. Lightning now knows that she** knows.**

Fang's words drift back to her. _/I need Vanille to tell me the truth now. Enough is enough!/_

Lightning realizes that Vanille's known all along.

She remembers everything. Lightning considers which of her friends received the worse deal here. Fang, who remembers nothing; or Vanille, who remembers everything.

"Light?" Hope steps into her line of sight and blocks her view of Vanille and Sazh. She feels crazed and confused, filled with nauseous terror. Hope lays a hand on her cheek and she feels his healing magic bleed through before she realizes what's happening. She panics for a moment by instinct alone. She meets Hope's eyes again and feels clearer and calmer; Hope gives her a small smile and it takes every ounce of herself to smile back at him.

"I'm alright now," she lies. She's not sure that she'll ever qualify as anything approaching 'alright' again. She now has memories that she has no right to possess. She shakes her head, unwilling to even let the thought cohere. It's the worst sort of betrayal, to know what she knows and to horde the knowledge. Of course, she's not going to be thanked for returning the horrifying memories either. She's fairly certain she now has a firm grasp of the 'no win situation.'

She lifts her hand, feels the muscles in her arm and back spasm in protest and winces. Hope frowns at her, reaches to heal her and she puts up a hand in a halting gesture. "Give me a minute, okay?"

Hope nods and sits down across from her. His fingers fiddle absently at with the fraying hem of his pants. She stares at him, watches as he works small baby blue threads from the fabric of his jeans. She remembers when she'd first clapped eyes on him, back on the Pulse Vestige. A lifetime ago. He'd been so in style and fashionable: a child of means. He'd trusted himself into her care. And now, here he sits looking worse than a beggar. He pulls another thread from his fraying pants and she has a sudden urge to patch his clothes for him again. Hope has been torn from everything he's ever known; he's had every comfort and luxury torn from him by the damnable fal'Cie. And by PSICOM. She'd promised herself that she would take care of this boy, do for him what she'd failed to do for her sister.

Who had she been kidding? She can't even take care of herself anymore. She glances down at her torn, stained clothes that match only her torn, bruised and transformed flesh.

"Sis?" Snow's voice in her ear startles her. She's too jumpy by far. "You're shaking," he whispers. Now that he's mentioned it, she can feel her whole body trembling like someone is running a live current through it. She needs to regain some control here. They don't have time for her to fall to pieces. They have completed their journey through the darkness and have made it out again. They have to keep going. They have matters to discuss, decisions to make. Paths to choose. They don't have time for her to sit here and ruminate on how sartorially challenged they all are at the moment!

"What happened?" She asks. She's still half stuck in her last dream/memory. She can't get the sounds of grunting from her mind; the smells of violation. (And is she ever thankful that she doesn't have the visual to accompany the rest of the senses! She's pretty certain she's got enough material to haunt her for the rest of her life already.) Not to mention the image of Vanille hanging by her pretty, pale throat, feet kicking in search of purchase.

She tastes the vomit at the back of her throat and gropes at her hip for a flask only to find she has none. She feels her heart kick harder, her mouth go drier. She swallows to try and work some moisture into her mouth only to find a flask pressed into her hands. She looks at Snow over her shoulder and he gives her a small smile and nod. She spends a moment hoping that the water isn't drugged before deciding that she doesn't actually care. Water is water and right now, she'd suck it out of mud to get some into her.

"Which part?" He shifts around and sits behind her, long legs bracketing hers. She leans against his chest, listens to his words, feels them vibrate through her as she watches Hope pull more small strings from the fraying bottoms of his pants. Snow's hands rest beside him on the marble tiles, heels dug in, fingers tapping idly.

"The part where you ran back into a collapsing cave?" She can hear the anger under the words and she winces. "Or the part where your little bratty protégé bruised my ribs?"

"That's what you get for being a handsy, grabby jerk, Hero!" Hope quips, eyes still on the fingers unraveling his jeans. Lightning chuckles out loud and can feel Snow's silent laughter vibrate through her back.

"Have I mentioned that I'm really glad you're back to look after this kid? I'm pretty sick of him," Snow stage whispers.

Hope looks up and sneers at Snow, "Yeah. Well I should have...just," he pauses and Lightning can see him reconsidering whatever he was about to say. She wonders if she even wants to know. "Just...bite me, Hero!" He turns beet red.

"Hope!" Lightning exclaims, more out of shock than any sort of anger. She's not sure why Hope would react to playful banter with such venom.

"What? He's a jerk!" Hope pouts like a child half his age. Lightning bites back the response. Something else is going on here between them and she's not sure she wants to get involved.

"Ah!" Snow scoffs. "You love me kid. I don't know who you're kidding here." Lightning would have never believed it was possible to turn any redder, but Hope somehow manages it. His entire face glows like a tomato. She smacks Snow's leg.

"Enough," she declares, wondering when she became the mother of two toddlers. Snow is feigning his good humor and Hope's anger radiates off him in waves so potent they nearly bowl Lightning over.

"You're no fun!" Snow whispers. _That's the truth!_ Hope's fists clench and his face pinches so tight he looks like he might implode. She needs to get back onto topic here or this entire powder keg is going to explode.

"You still haven't answered my question," she says hoping for some diversion.

"What question?" Snow asks. "Oh! Where was I? Wanna help me out here Kid?" Hope's whole body relaxes. It seems as if the one thing that Snow and Hope can agree on right now is their frustration with Lightning.

"I think you were up to the part where Lightning decided to slam the door in our faces again and lock us in this musty room," Hope says, pulling a thread longer than Lightning's hair out of the bottoms of his jeans. Another one like that and the entire leg would unravel.

"Hey Hope! Would you stop picking at your clothes?" She wonders if she's managed to hold onto her sewing kit so she could patch up the seam. It really won't do for Hope to spend the remainder of this journey in his underwear.

"You're not my mother!" Hope snaps and she wonders at the stab of pain. It's not as if Hope has said anything false or particularly hurtful. She is most definitely not his mother. _/Not by a long shot!/_ And if she were, what a lousy mother she would be. Look at the situation that she's dragged him into. He's been walking the thin line between life and death for months now. What sort of mother would allow their child to experience...anything that he's lived through since he's met Lightning?

Truth or no, she still feels as if he's delivered a full on haymaker rather than stated a fact. Perhaps it's her exhaustion catching up to her. Or maybe it's the horror of the days where she'd been certain he was dead that have worn away at her usually thick skin. Something of her pain must show on her face because Hope goes from red to pale in under two seconds. He shakes his head, looks at her with wet, dewy eyes and says through quivering lips, "I'm...I'm sorry Light. I was j-just..." his voice catches; he stands up and walks off, wiping his eyes.

"Hope," she calls after him. Seeing him in pain tears at her even more. She aches for him. She hates that he's upset. She moves to get up but Snow stops her with one hand around her elbow. She looks in Snow's eyes, sees the hurt sincerity there and settles back on the floor cross legged. She stares at the tiles on the floor, unable to bear the hurt in his eyes anymore than she can take the anger in Hope's words.

"Just..." he lets go of her as she relaxes again, "...give him a minute. Alright, Sis? You scared him and... and it's been a rough few days for him."

_It's been a rough few days for all of us, _the bitterest most ignoble part of herself chimes in.

"I didn't want to upset him." When did this get this difficult? When did communicating with Hope become impossible?

"You don't need to explain yourself to me, remember Light? I know why you did what you did. Again." Snow's tone belies his words. She can hear his frustration. "I know you want to protect him. Just don't do that again, alright? We can't lose you again."

She glances at him and looks back at the floor. She wants to agree to the demand. She NEVER wants to run into a collapsing cave ever again. But if she had the choice to make again, she'd choose to save them every time. She considers agreeing with his demand just to appease him, but she decides that lying would be the unforgivable offense. She remains silent. Snow heaves an aggravated sigh. She hopes that he won't start a fight with her now. She's not sure she can handle one right now.

"Anyway," he continues and she feels stark relief, "after you nearly gave the kid and me heart attacks by running off into the dark, collapsing cave, we stood here shouting at each other for a while."

"You shouted at Hope?" Lightning asks, completely unable to picture such a phenomenon.

"Alright," Snow concedes. "So, the kid screamed at me." Now that is a scenario Lightning can picture. "He um...called me a dumb blond. A lot." Lightning laughs at him, finding that the humor has enabled her to finally look at him again. He rolls his eyes at her, curls his lip up in a sneer. "Hilarious, I know."

"You're just a big softie, Snow. Who knew?"

"Serah did," Snow whispers and all humor evaporates. Lightning feels as if the knife Hope had plunged into her chest has just been twisted and torn out. She takes a deep breath to help alleviate the pain and then remembers something important. She feels every ache in her body again as she works her way up onto her knees. Snow pulls one knee up and Lightning uses it for leverage to hoist her sore, aching body onto her feet. She fumbles with the strap on her pouch until it finally comes loose and the roots around a bit, praying that she hasn't lost it. Her fingers brush against something cool and smooth and she stills and exhales. She turns around to face Snow and he stands with his hands at the ready to catch her, looking nervous as hell. "You alright Sis?"

She gives him a big smile and closes her fist around her surprise before drawing it out of her pouch. She nods at him, draws her hand out of her pouch and keeps her fist closed, palm upwards. Snow looks wary. Maybe he expects her to punch him again. _(Maybe he's not such a dumb blond after all.)_ She opens her fingers to reveal the treasure within.

Serah's crystal tear sparkles in the slanted sunlight. The crystal scatters the light into its composite colors, smearing rainbows of polka dots throughout the rotunda. Lightning stares at the crystal for a moment, then follows the beams of color where they dance in the farthest reaches of the huge room. She thinks about her sister, can almost see her dancing between the beams of color and light. She spies one beam that is the same color as Serah's eyes. She moves her palm, watches as the light does a jitterbug and she can almost hear her sister's laugh echo through the room.

The light disappears. Lightning feels fingertips brush her palm and she looks down and watches as Snow's large hand closes over the crystal tear. His eyes are glued to his own bruised knuckles as they bend and close around the tear in her hand. She can feel him trembling through that small point of contact.

Snow exhales a shaky breath that stirs her hair. She watches him blink, black lashes fluttering like hummingbird wings, before he finally meets her eyes.

She sees the suspicious glisten but says nothing about it. She decides to be merciful to the poor, drowning man before her.

"Sis..." he chokes. "I thought..." the last syllable catches and he closes his eyes, brings his fist to his lips and kisses it. He gasps in a small breath and exhales through his nose. She admires his ability to keep his composure when he so obviously wants to blubber right now.

She wants to touch him but she doesn't. She knows the simple gesture will destroy whatever measly control he still maintains.

"Doesn't matter." She keeps her tone light. "That's yours and I should have given it back to you earlier."

Snow presses his fist to his forehead and nods. Swallows. Nods again. He exhales a steadying breath and says, "Yeah. Thanks, Sis. You don't know..."

"I do," she interrupts. "You don't have to thank me."

"What's wrong with him?" Hope whispers from behind Lightning. Her weapon is in her hand before she can stall the instinct but she mercifully manages not to point it at him. She holsters the Edged Carbine and glances over her shoulder at Hope. He looks pale but unfazed. Either he didn't notice that she'd drawn her weapon, or he's grown used to her killer reflexes.

"Nothing. He just found something he thought he lost," she says, hoping to reassure and keep Snow's confidence. Snow rubs his empty hand across his face and shoves his fist into his pocket in one move. Lightning looks down at Hope, notes the confused look on his face. She reaches to put a hand on his shoulder, groans at the muscles that pull from her arm into her back and chest.

"You alright, Light?" Hope asks. He sounds worried again.

"Mmm," she groans, rolls her shoulders and her neck and hears a half dozen pops and snaps. She moans with pained relief and looks at the horrified expression on Hope's face. "What? I'm getting old!"

"Um...Sure. Whatever you say." Hope looks a bit green around the gills.

"What's wrong Hope?" He shakes his head and looks away. "Hope?"

"Um..." his eyes flicker to her arm and she realizes what's bothering him.

Damn it! What is she supposed to say here? She can't explain this and really doesn't want to talk about it at all. So she does what she does best-deflects and ignores.

"Don't worry about that, okay?" she says, knowing exactly how well that's going to go over.

"What is it?"

"It's...nothing important." It's not really a lie.

"Why do you do that?" Hope yells. The sound echoes through the room, making her flinch. She looks around and sees everyone's eyes on her. Fang steps from behind one of the towering bookshelves and arches an eyebrow. Lightning looks at her feet. She can feel her face heating and her temper rising. "Why do you treat me like some sort of idiot kid?"

"Hope..." Lightning begins, wanting to keep her temper in check and stop the imminent argument and explosion.

"Why do you lie all the time?" She meets his eyes again, her fury good and stoked. She's no stranger to teenage bitchery and she's too tired to keep her monster temper in check now. She's pretty tired of Hope yelling everything out. She's been giving him far too much latitude, it seems.

"Hey Kid!" Snow snaps out, stepping forward.

"Stay out of this Snow!" Hope yells. Lightning feels the heat in her face dissipate in favor of the icy coldness that accompanies paling. She watches Hope's face turn red, watches as a thin trail of blood snakes from his nostril. All her anger disappears into an ocean of panic.

"Hope..." she whispers and steps toward him, reaching. He jerks away.

"I'm so tired of all the secrets and all the lying." The blood drips onto the floor and Snow's eyes follow it.

"Hey, Kid," Snow says. Lightning recognizes that tone of voice. This is Snow's 'spooked animal' voice. He's used this voice with her too many times to count in recent months. "Why don't you just...take it easy, alright?"

"Take it easy?" Hope squeaks and more blood flows. Lightning steps forward to grab him and he jerks away, overbalances and swoons. He sways and lifts a shaking hand to wipe under his nose. His eyes widen at the blossom of blood on his fingers. All the color drains from his face and he raises round, terror filled eyes to meet hers. "Light?"

His eyes roll upwards and he slumps, head on a collision course with the marble tiles. Lightning lunges forward but Fang appears from nowhere like some guardian angel and catches him before he hits the ground.

* * *

TBC...

I realize that the Eidolon battle with Hecatoncheir was just Vanille and Fang in the game, and that's why the beginning of the battle started without Lightning (and therefore the reader) present. The reasons why I included other characters in the fight will become apparent (if they aren't already.)

I really debated any references to rape at all in this story, but the opening quote sort of says it all. Rape is an unfortunate reality of war-especially in mob situations.


	23. This Broken Jaw of Our Lost Kingdoms

A/N: This delay was longer than I'm used to and shorter than I intended. I really planned to finish before posting the rest. I was hoping that decision might push me into writing more. It did just the opposite. So...here is chapter 23 and I hope you are not too disappointed.

No warnings for this chapter. Seriously. None. This is probably my least violent chapter EVER!  
Thanks to all my readers and most especially to my reviewers. Without your encouragements, I might have abandoned this monster and moved on to other projects!

* * *

"If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose."  
-Charles Bukowski

-This Broken Jaw of Our Lost Kingdoms-

"Well, this is different," Fang remarks as she lowers Hope to the floor. Fang presses two fingers to Hope's throat and gives a faint nod before lifting an eyelid to peer inside. She puts her head against his chest, closes her eyes and listens, then sits up again and exhales.

_This is my fault. _Lightning doesn't say it out loud because, while she may be a selfish bitch, she's not so selfish as to make Hope's illness about her.

"He alright?" Snow asks. He's close enough to Lightning that she can feel the tension thrumming through his body, but he doesn't actually touch. "Fang? Is the kid alright?"

_This is my fault. _At least, she's not selfish enough to tell everyone else that it's about her. Because she can't manage to get her head or heart to buy that it isn't her fault right now.

"I think so. Just worked himself up into a bit of a tizzy, which is not really the best idea at this juncture, right?" Fang sighs and glances over towards where Vanille sits. "Wanna come over here and take a look, love? I'm not the medic here."

Lightning glances over towards Vanille. She looks nervous, like something happened and she's now uncomfortable in her own skin and in their group. She wonders if Vanille knows that Lightning knows that Vanille knows what happened. But Vanille isn't giving Lightning the hairy eyeball.

She's glowering at Fang.

Lightning looks back and forth between the two women and can't help but wonder what the hell she missed. Vanille has never looked at Fang with anything but admiration. Fang has never shown anything but affection and concern. They share a camaraderie and trust that Lightning envies. But right now, they are eyeing one another like adversaries in a boxing ring.

Or dogs preparing to fight.

Vanille approaches cautiously and the whole situation is surreal in a way that makes Lightning wonder if she's hallucinating again. Vanille crouches beside Hope and the boy rouses a bit, head rolling from side to side on the floor. Vanille whispers something to him that Lightning doesn't quite catch and Hope's eye flutter.

"Come on," Lightning mutters under her breath.

"He'll be fine, Sis." Snow's hand wraps around the back of her neck, thumb sweeping upwards towards her ear. "He's a tough kid." Lightning stiffens at the contact, then relaxes, realizes that Snow is as tactile a person as she is aloof. His comforting touches comfort him as much, if not more, than her.

"I know." And she does. Hope's tenderness has been calloused over by this journey and he is now one of the strongest people she knows. Stronger than her by far. Still, knowing a thing and feeling the belief in your heart are two entirely different matters. She knows Hope's tough. She can't stop seeing him as a boy that needs protection.

A boy that she swore to protect.

Hope groans and opens his eyes, flinches at the light, blinks to focus. He blushes to the roots of his hair when he realizes that Vanille is crouching over him with her hands on his face. "Uh...Um..." he stammers.

"You alright?" Vanille asks. Lightning knows she's not imagining the extra added sweetness in Vanille's tone and she feels a smile tug her lips. Snow snorts into his hand.

Poor Hope. His crush is the worst kept secret ever.

"I...I'm alright." Hope doesn't sound so sure, but he'd never admit it to Vanille anyway. Considering the way he's blushing, Lightning's inclined to believe him.

"Of course you are!" Vanille giggles.

Hope's eyes dart around until they land on Lightning. She steps towards him. "Light? What happened?"

"You had a hissy fit and fainted," Snow provides and Lightning scowls at him.

"Shut up, Snow!" Hope snaps with renewed energy and immediate ire. "No one asked you!"

"I just call it like I see it kid." Snow holds out a hand and Hope scowls at it and him before finally grabbing the proffered hand. Snow hoists Hope to his feet, steadies him and claps him on his back with a hit that nearly sends him right back onto his face. Snow chuckles and walks away. Hope shoots Snow the dirtiest look Lightning has ever seen as his hand seeks out the sore spot from the hit. He grumbles something under his breath that makes Lightning's eyes widen in shock and he storms after Snow.

Fang strolls over hands on her hips and says, "Where the hell did he hear that word?" Lightning opens her mouth to deliver the obvious answer, but is cut off. "And don't say me this time! Because I have never said that. I don't think." Lightning shakes her head and shrugs. "Gotta hand it to the Hero though."

"What?" Lightning asks, too distracted to put two and two together and not come up with sixteen. The knot in her stomach eases and she's not sure why. Hope is up and moving around, but the anger that drove him to his collapse (she refuses to think of it as an 'episode;' that's too close to admitting that he's beyond help) is still apparent in every tense line of his body. But he seems to be channeling all that rage at Snow.

"Well, he managed to defuse that situation in less than a minute. He's got a knack, is what he's got." Lightning twists to look at Fang and the other woman gives her a wink and a smile. Lightning stares after Hope and Snow, sees Hope gesticulating madly at the big man while Snow nods at him, folds his arms and shrugs.

Accepting Hope's anger and making everyone forget their fear.

"I'll be damned," Lightning whispers. Fang turns serious for a moment.

"Nah. We'll all be damned, and no mistake," Fang says and it's like a bucket of ice water. Lightning shivers and looks at Fang. "I think we have some things we all need to discuss."

"Yeah," Lightning concurs, but she'd rather pull all her teeth out with rusty pliers than get involved right now.

"But I think we can put it off for a bit," Fang says, surprising Lightning. The other woman gives her a beaming, toothy smile. "I don't know about you, but I could do with some fresh air and some great outdoors. What say we find our way out of this tomb?"

It may not be the best idea that Lightning's ever heard, but right now, she's pretty hard pressed to remember a better one. There's nothing on any world that she'd like more than to get back outside again. She's had enough of indoors to last her ten lifetimes. She's never been claustrophobic, but she's flirting with it by now with all the close, dark misery of Mah'Habara.

"Hey Kiddies!" Fang yells. Lightning catches the sheepish look on Hope's face and laughs. He's poised to punch Snow in the arm again and he looks for all the world like a kid caught with his hand in a cookie jar. Lightning smiles into her fist and clears her throat to cover for it. "Wanna break it up now? We're going to find a way out of here. Or do you both just wanna catch up later?"

Lightning never would have believed that Hope could move so fast, but he's at their side in under five seconds, shifting from foot to foot anxiously, eyes wide and sparkling. "No way am I staying in this place another minute!" Hope declares. "Let's go!"

Snow saunters up behind Hope and puts his hand on Hope's shoulder. Hope sneers at him but doesn't pull away.

Lightning wonders how it's possible that she's never noticed this before. Is this why Snow baits her? To spark her anger and distract her from her misery? She looks into sparkling blue eyes and Snow winks at her.

The big blond bastard actually has the balls to wink at her!

She feels her eyes widen and he gives her his thousand watt smile. She contemplates planting her fist into it for his audacity at playing her like a fiddle. It might feel good. In fact, she is certain it will feel great!

She clenches her fist in anticipation, but it impossible to drum up an appropriate amount of indignation; she just can't be angry at him anymore and wonders when the hell that happened. Being angry at Snow used to be easier than breathing! Punching him in the face was her favorite pastime. She gives up, relaxes her hand again, sighs and smiles back at him.

What the hell. It works, right? She's too exhausted to question anyone's methods these days. Fang distracted her by nearly breaking her jaw. At least Snow distracts her by letting her almost break his jaw. It's not the most brilliant solution, but then again, Snow's a pretty simple guy. For once, Lightning thinks that might be a huge advantage to him. Snow doesn't bog himself down in muck like she does. It's probably why he's a far happier person than she'll ever be.

Fang turns to walk away, Hope hard on her heels. Snow strolls after them and gives Lightning a knowing smirk. She scowls at him and feels her fist clench.

Maybe she should punch him once, for old time's sake.

"Coming Sis?" He continues past her, hands laced behind his head in an approximation of relaxed indifference. She thinks he may even be humming to himself. She unclenches her fist, shakes her head and follows.

_Maybe he's not such a dumb blond after all._

* * *

Lightning starts after Hope, Snow and Fang when she catches sight of Sazh leaning against the wall. She frowns, casts a surreptitious glance after her friends before changing course to intercept Sazh.

He stares at his feet for a moment before something alerts him to her approach. He glances up at her and does his best to shake off his misery: to appear whole and well. She wonders for a moment if they are all stubborn asses by nature, or if she's just managed to infect all her friends with one of her least appealing qualities.

"Wha's up, Soldier?" he slurs, seems to realize that the words are mashed together and near incomprehensible. He clears his throat in a lame attempt to blame the slurring on a some sort of frog in his throat.

"How you doing, Sazh?" Lightning says as she approaches her bandaged friend.

"Uhhng," he groans, shakes his head and then stumbles. Lightning grabs him to steady him, holds his arm until she's sure he's not going to fall flat on his face. He puts a hand on his stomach and gets clammy. And maybe a bit green.

"That good, huh?" Lightning asks. She's relieved that he's abandoned his attempts at playing it casual.

"Trying not to puke up all the water Vanille poured into me." He burps and pulls a face that makes Lightning wince in empathy.

"How's that working out for you?" She wants to remain casual here, and hopes it doesn't come off as uncaring.

"Not so great. Thanks for rubbing it in." Lightning glances at the bandage on his head, notes the small dot of blood soaking through. He must feel like death and he hasn't said a word about it. Lightning looks towards where her friends have gone. "Come on Soldier," Sazh says. "We shouldn't fall too far behind."

"Hold up a minute," she says, catching his arm and guiding him to the wall. She looks in his eyes, sees that the pupils are uneven. She tilts his head upward a bit towards the light, hoping his pupils will respond to the increased brightness. They remain fixed and uneven and she swears under her breath. Sazh is in no condition to do anything but stay still. They cannot afford delay. With their luck, they'll turn into Cie'th before the bruising on Sazh's brain heals. Lightning considers her options and realizes that they all suck, as per usual. She chooses the one that seems to suck the least.

"I asked you once before if you trusted me and you told me yes. Do you still?" She wouldn't really blame him if he doesn't.

She watches Sazh try and figure out what she's talking about, sees the realization hit him like a two by four to the gut. "Oh no!" he barks then winces. He puts his hand to his head and closes his eyes in pain, lowers his voice and says, "I can't take that again."

"No, no, no." _Just. No._ "Don't worry. I'm not up for that either right now." She's really not. Her whole body is a mess of aches and pains; she's kind of light-headed and just feels wrong in ways she can't (doesn't want to) define. She would rather avoid magic altogether right now, but Sazh needs help and she thinks she can provide it. "May I?" She gestures to his head. She can't bring herself to force any sort of magic onto any of her friends anymore. Not with what is so obviously happening to her.

He stares at her for a moment before saying, "Go for it, Soldier. What have I got to lose?" She gives him what she hopes is a reassuring smile. From the look on his face, she figures she missed that mark by an unacceptably wide margin.

Lightning closes her eyes and tries to picture the magic inside her. She's never really done this before-call up intentional spells. Not the really powerful ones at any rate. She's called up a healing spell or two, but this one is going to have to be...more. She usually lets her adrenaline and instincts dictate her actions and spells. But she's pretty certain that Sazh has a fairly severe closed head injury right now. (She hopes it's only closed. If his skull is compromised, she figures he's beyond her help.)

Lightning knows that Vanille has pumped Sazh full of magic and he's still woozy, nauseated and confused. From what she remembers of her basic medical training, unresponsive, uneven pupils can indicate brain contusion, swelling and possible bleeding, and usually even worse. There's probably a multitude of other problems that he hasn't named and that she's too exhausted to notice.

So yeah, she's never done this before, but she's never consciously decided to repair a head injury. The last time she attempted to heal severe injuries she'd basically said, 'screw it' and followed her gut. It ended up working, but it just as easily could have killed all of them. She's not willing to be so flippant about it this time.

It takes a moment before she feels the magic like something separate from herself. She visualizes that she's unfurling it, unspooling it from inside in order to gather it up and focus it. It falls apart as she gathers it and she blows out a breath in frustration. She opens her eyes to find Sazh staring at her with something like frustrated hope. "Okay," she whispers. _Try again, Lightning._

Lightning, she thinks, and suddenly the visualization of her magic is a dark cloud.

/"_Lightning. It flashes bright, then fades away. It can't protect. It only destroys."/ _

_Like hell!_

The storm cloud of her magic churns and swirls, spins and grows. She can see the small flashes of light inside it, hear the rumbling of the thunder that each flash hails. The magic grows thicker and darker, swirls inside until she's afraid that it might tear her apart. She touches Sazh and unleashes the storm at him, feels it tear out of her like a tornado leaving her dizzy in its wake.

Sazh slumps against the wall and she feels like she might throw up. "Sazh? You okay?"

"What the hell was that?" He asks. His eyes, when they meet hers, are focused and sharp. He reaches up and touches his head, slips his fingertips under the bandage to press at what must have been a spectacular bruise. The fingers keep pushing until they draw the bandage off his head and he touches the fingers of his other hand to the freshly healed skin. They come away shaky, and he looks at her with an odd mixture of fear and awe. "Holy..."

"Yeah." She feels a bit sweaty and awful now, but she can't seem to care. Sazh has been a stalwart friend to her. She has no real expectations for any sort of survival anymore, but she's going to do her best to make sure that all her friends see the other side of this nightmare. She wants Sazh to hold his son, Hope to hug his father and Snow to marry her sister. She wants Fang and Vanille to find the peace now that they'd been denied so long ago.

She wants so much.

"What the hell is the hold up back here?" Snow snaps from behind her, startling her from her thoughts. Her heart is beating wildly in her chest, but the rhythm feels off kilter, like her heart is pausing and then racing to catch up.

She's a wreck. A nauseated wreck.

Sazh must realize that something is wrong so he says, "The soldier here just healed me up, good as new." Sazh flashes a smile.

A hand on her elbow pulls her around and she stares into Snow's concerned face. "You alright, Sis?"

_Nope._

"Not really." She decides to go for honesty just for a change. Snow's eyes widen in horror, and she realizes her mistake. "But I will be."

"You sure?" His fingers are a band around her arm, their grip just south of painful. He dips his head to try and catch her eyes. She dredges up a smile just for him. He flinches. It's a small thing, but she still notices it. She must look about as fabulous as she feels.

"As sure as I can be. How are you feeling Sazh?" Sazh looks startled at being dragged back into the conversation. Maybe a little pissed too.

"Hh...Yeah I feel pretty good. I'm gonna..." he jerks his head toward where the others have vanished, "you know...go."

"We're all going," Snow says. He lets go of her arm and says, "So let's go. Fang thinks she's found a way out."

* * *

Lightning's footsteps echo as she makes her way across the vast space. She tries to focus on walking, breathing and not puking, tries to remain alert and on guard, but her eyes keep wandering around the rotunda. The daylight reveals the room in its glory, scatters diffuse light into every nook of the room, casts sweeping, dancing shadows. The air is heavy with dust that has gathered into sheets of cobwebs stringing everything together like some sort of tapestry.

Despite the centuries of dust, the building astounds her.

The room is a library as she'd known, but it is so much more than just a warehouse for books. The edge of the ceiling is scalloped beneath shrouds of cobwebs. There are scrolls of wood, sweeping spirals on the walls buried by years of dust now. Each bookshelf bears markings and carvings, designs in the wood that can only have been carved by hand. The outer end of each massive bookcase bears a pictorial of some sort and as she walks, she can see that each one relates to the last.

"It's a story," she breathes.

"What's that soldier?" Sazh asks. He looks shifty and nervous and not particularly impressed. Probably because they're in a new place that is ripe with potential dangers. Probably because he's far smarter than she is behaving these days.

"The carvings in the wood. They're different scenes from the same story." She approaches one and brushes away a cobweb, coughs once at the inhaled dust, stares at the etching and wonders once again about the residents of Gran Pulse. These people who were so different from her, and so similar at the same time. To create such marvels and such madness.

She supposes it is the essence of human nature.

Sazh sidles alongside her, turns his head and looks at the picture and says, "Oh yeah." He walks a few feet back to look at the last one and then the one before that. "It looks like a creation story."

"What?" Something hits Lightning low in her gut. She walks over to where Sazh is pulling cobwebs from the wood.

"Yeah. See here," he gestures toward a part of the picture. "This sphere here?"

She nods. Indeed she does, but she still doesn't get it.

"This lady here just hung it in the heavens." Lightning sees the top half of the sphere, the long shapes that might be fingers, the outline of what could be a woman's head. Maybe. The carved relief is still covered in half a millennium's worth of dust, and dust in the air reflects and diffuses the light. She really can't make out details.

"How the hell can you know that?" Lightning asks.

"Because it says so. Right up here." Sazh gestures to incomprehensible symbols at the top and bottom of the carving. "Thus Etro did hang Pulse as First among the Stars. See these tiny indents." He rubs his finger into the crevice to pull the dust out and then blows to get the rest clear. "There! See it's six pointed. A star."

Lightning stares at the star then back at Sazh. Something of her confusion must show on her face because Sazh says, "What? You don't see it?"

"No, I...I do." And she does. Now that he's explained it to her, she sees the stars. She sees the Goddess, and the planet. What she doesn't see, however, is how the hell Sazh can decipher the language. Because she's pretty certain that she's never even seen this language before...last night when she found the book. "How do you know what that says?"

"What are you talking about?"

_And just...Crap. _

Her next thought, not that her first thought really passes the litmus test to qualify as a thought, is that she's broken Sazh; she's worked some crazy spell upon him that somehow transformed his brain and now he's speaking in tongues. Or reading in them.

The next thought is that she needs to get over herself because really, if she has the power to make people read ancient languages, why the hell hasn't she given it to HERSELF.

Then she realizes that she's once again making everything about her. And that she is not just a selfish bitch but quite possibly The Selfish Bitch: capitalized in the manner of all proper titles.

She rubs her forehead in attempt to get at a phantom ache that is just now forming as Sazh wanders over to the next relief. He pulls handfuls of cobwebs, blows at the dust and coughs until his eyes tear. She joins him, tilts her head at the carving. This one has the hands again at the top, long fingers splayed in what she decides must be the sky. There are strange shapes on what she decides is the ground below, but she doesn't recognize them.

"What's this one say?" she asks despite herself.

Sazh squints at the title and says, "Creation of the First." He swipes away the dust on the bottom and reads, "Gifted With the Wisdom of Etro."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"The fal'Cie," Sazh replies as if it were obvious . Hell, maybe it is. She hasn't been running at full capacity for weeks. "They were the First."

"Wisdom my ass!" she snarls at the relief, feels anger stir at the picture. She considers drawing her weapon and destroying the carving. She knows nothing useful will come of the act, but she will undoubtedly garner more than a little satisfaction from the act of destruction.

It takes a conscious effort to unfurl her fingers from her weapon.

"What's the hold up?" Hope asks from behind her, startling her into nearly shooting him for the second time in one day. "What are you looking at?" He continues, blissfully unaware of the scare he's just given her. Again.

He really needs to stop sneaking up on her. She's far too twitchy and overwrought.

"Gran Pulse myths carved into wood," Sazh answers. "They're pretty interesting, actually."

"Is that a language?" Hope asks. He leans forward and traces his fingers over the embossed characters. "I wonder what it says."

Sazh visibly pales and for a minute, Lightning wonders what happened. "You...uh, you can't read this?" Hope gives Sazh a look like he's just grown an extra head. Sazh nods once then says, "Great. More l'Cie crap. I'm pretty sick and tired of not knowing my own mind anymore."

"You can read it?"

"Hope," Lightning whispers, putting her hand on his shoulder and giving a small shake of her head. This isn't the time to upset Sazh.

"Nah, Soldier. I'm alright." Sazh says walking to the next relief. "I mean...if I'm going to transform, I guess learning new languages is preferable to..." he stops and looks at her with wide eyes.

"To turning into a monster." Sazh starts shaking his head at her to deny but she holds up a hand. "It's alright. You're right." _I am a monster._

"I didn't..." he starts and she cuts him off.

"Don't Sazh. You don't have to apologize for telling the truth. I know what I'm becoming. I'm not some delicate flower who can't face the truth."

Usually.

"You're not a monster Light!" Hope declares and somehow that faithful declaration hurts more than Sazh's offhand comment. Hope looks back and forth between Sazh and Lightning. "Why would you even say that?"

"I didn't mean it like..." Sazh is still trying to salve over an imagined hurt.

"Please stop apologizing, alright." Her voice is sharp, and belies her insistence that she's A-Okay here. She huffs once, and tries again. "It's not your fault what's happening." She reconsiders destroying the fal'Cie carving in an act of rebellion and defiance. They are the ones who broke and remade her into a monster. "You shouldn't apologize for things that aren't your fault."

"Yeah, I know. But I don't have to be a boneheaded insensitive jerk." Lightning opens her mouth to argue further, but Hope cuts her off.

"Really! I thought being a jerk was Snow's job," Hope says and Lightning looks at Hope's innocent expression and wonders for a moment if she is really the worst influence ever. Sazh snorts and laughs.

"Wow. The Hero can't catch a break, can he?" Sazh says. "Just ripping him up one side and down the other."

"So, what's it say then?" Hope asks, pointing to the picture. Sazh's smile disappears and he looks back at the carving.

"A whole lot of bull, that's what it says. Let's catch up to the others. I'm sick of this place." Sazh starts walking again, mumbles "sick of this whole damn world," but he can't ignore the carvings anymore than an addict can ignore their drug. Lightning puts her hand on Hope's back and nudges him after Sazh. She keeps a watchful eye on Sazh as he walks and moves.

Hope points at one and whispers, "That looks like a behemoth." Lightning glances at the carving and can make out the vague shapes of some larger animals, including the massive form of an adamantoise. The writing is still foreign and odd, but she can guess that this one is about the creation of the animals of Gran Pulse.

"This one is about humans," Sazh says, pointing. Lightning walks over and dusts off the carving. She takes care while cleaning, hoping to get down to the wood so they can see this one clearly. She can make out the large shapes of the fal'Cie and the smaller shapes of the humans. She sneers at the picture.

"And Etro Made Humans, and Filled Them With Love and Compassion for Each Other and The First. And Humans did love the First and the First could learn of love from humans," Sazh reads. He sneers. "Well that was a massive failure then."

"What does that mean? That we're supposed to love the fal'Cie." Hope looks upset, and Lightning can't figure out if it's because he doesn't love the fal'Cie, or maybe still sort of does. They all did, once upon a time.

"Who knows?" Lightning says. "It's all pretty pictures and fancy talk. None of it means anything." Lightning storms away.

This is the beginning of their story and it's a giant load of crap. Humans were created to love the fal'Cie? The Goddess made them as what? As entertainment for the fal'Cie?

No.

According to these stories Hope was right all those long weeks ago back on Cocoon. Humans are pets to the fal'Cie. And just like pets, humans are expected to love their 'masters' no matter what. Too bad no one ever explained to the 'Goddess' that even the most loving pets could turn against their masters. Besides, Lightning has always been far more loyal than loving. Anger and loving don't really coexist well, it seems. And now that her loyalty has shifted? Lightning is feeling pretty rabid.

"What are you kids doing back here?" Fang yells, snapping Lightning from her dark and violent thoughts. "I thought we were all in agreement about getting the hell out of here."

"Yeah. We are!" Hope yells back.

"Well then what are standing around for? Let's go!"

"Nag, nag, nag." Sazh jokes and starts walking towards Fang. "Bitch, bitch, bitch."

"Who are you calling a bitch?" Fang replies and though Lightning can hear that she's teasing, Sazh backpedals like he's just said the worst thing imaginable. _So easy._ Fang throws her head back and laughs, turns and walks away, Sazh hard on her heels still spouting apologies.

Hope grabs Lightning's hand and says, "Come on, Light! I want to get out of here."

Lightning takes one last look around at the great rotunda, wonders if they are making a mistake leaving without further exploration before dismissing the worry and looking into Hope's wide eyes. _Screw it! There's nothing here but ghosts._ She has enough things haunting her now without courting more. She smiles at him and lets him pull her along, content to let him lace his fingers through hers and lead her into the darkening corridor.

* * *

"Could this door be any bigger?" Snow asks, tone laced with irritation and disgust. "Why the hell would anyone need a door this big?"

Lightning stares at the door that goes up and up, reaches from the floor to the ceiling. Better than two stories high and half again as wide. It's ridiculous and grand and marvelous in equal measure.

"I'd imagine it's to make room for the Tyrants and such," Fang replies and Hope blanches. "Wouldn't want them ducking doorways."

"They can open doors?" Hope eyes the door warily, as if he expects that any minute a tyrant might pull it open and wander into the hallway with a cup of coffee. Or a giant sword.

Fang barks out a laugh. "I was just kidding, but I'm guessing that if something big enough that it needs a door this size wants to come through, then yeah," she turns and nods once, "they'll come right through and no mistake." Sazh shakes his head at Fang, mumbles something about lying under his breath.

"More likely the architects designed this whole place to be overwhelming and awe inspiring. The doors are just part of the package," Sazh explains.

"You're just no fun," Fang gripes. "I guess that's possible too."

"I don't really care why they built this door!" Snow snaps. He walks over and shoves at it. Lightning can see the muscles ripple in his forearms, the force pressing the veins upwards. His face and neck turn red and she can see the vein in his forehead throb with his racing heart beat. He looks like he might explode under the effort to open the doors. The doors don't even groan at the assault.

Snow steps back and gives the door a baleful look as his body resumes its natural coloration. "I want to know how the hell we open it."

Lightning sighs and starts searching for a switch or lever to open the door. There's no door knob (and if there were, it would be too far over their heads to reach) so she figures that the door is rigged to some sort of pulley system to open it. She can't even estimate the weight of the massive doors, but she's pretty sure that no human could open them manually.

She slides her hands up the walls on either side of the door, hoping to find a hidden switch. The walls are solid rock however, and she has a horrible and sneaking suspicion that this door is only meant to be opened from the other side. She presses her forehead against the cold stone wall.

_Crap._

"Crap," she repeats aloud, just to be contrary. She'd like to really curse, but she's afraid if she starts, she'll never ever stop.

"What's up, Sis?" Snow says into her ear. She startles, jumps and almost headbutts Snow. She's far too jumpy for her own taste. Snow flinches back from her and gives her a look of disbelief. He'd been trying to startle her (more smartass, nuisance behavior), but he obviously hadn't expected such a violent reaction. "You alright?"

She huffs out a disgusted sigh. "No. I'm not." He looks concerned. She snarls at the door and punches it, too angry to care about the indignity of her temper tantrum. "I'm so sick of this place. I JUST WANT OUT!"

She shouts out the last word and the whole cave echoes with the sound. She flinches, puts her hands over her ears and sees Snow cringe before his eyes widen. He shoves her into the corner and stands in front of her.

Snow is a six foot four wall of muscle and bone between her and the hallway. His back presses her flush into the wall so hard she can't breathe. She presses at his shoulder blades to get some air, some distance. He doesn't budge. She contemplates kicking out his knees right before he spins around and yells, "Close your eyes."

He's plastered to her in an uncomfortably intimate manner; his cheek is pressed against hers, his lips brush her jaw; his panicked breath gushes out of him in moist, hot bursts into her ear. His heart thuds so hard inside him that she feels it rattling through her body, telegraphing and transferring his panic into her. She doesn't question his command, jus twists her face away, closes her eyes tight, counts three of his rapid heartbeats before her head slams backwards against the stone wall and Snow's body crushes into her, driving all her air out of her in one painful burst.

She opens her eyes but can't focus them.

She closes her eyes again, groans out something she can't hear over the ringing roar in her ears. She feels as if she's been pulverized into paste. She opens her eyes again, tries to get some sort of bearings. Something vibrates against her chest and her whole body twitches. She tries to move, to take a breath, but she's pinned in place like a bug on a specimen block.

"What the hell is going on?" she says. It sounds like she's underwater, comes slow and dull and from a distance farther away from her ears than her mouth has any right to sound. She blinks her eyes again to clear away the blurring swirl of color.

Sazh's face hovers before hers. His lips are moving but she can't hear him over all the noise. "I can't hear you!" His lips keep moving and he reaches down towards her. Nothing makes any sense to her but suddenly she can move again, and Sazh is standing up with Snow hanging in his grip.

She can't figure out what happened and the confusion frightens her. She knows her mind is working, but it's like some connection has been knocked loose and she's caught in a feedback loop. There's too much static interference and her brain just cannot engage.

Something cold hits her face and she shakes her head, tries to get away. Then Fang kneels in front of her, grabs her shoulders and yells into her face, "You alright then?"

"What the hell happened?" She's not answering any questions right now. Not when she'd like some answers of her own. Everything still sounds like she's in some sort of wind tunnel. Water pools uncomfortably in her cleavage and she has no idea where it came from. Her ears feel as if they've been stuffed with cotton.

"Are you hurting anywhere?" Fang's presses a flask into her mouth and she turns away, afraid the woman is trying to drug her. Again!

"Is Snow alright? What's going on?" Fang huffs in irritation, looks over her shoulder, then meets Lightning's eyes again.

"The hero's just stunned. He's coming round now. Anything hurt?" Lightning feels her heart slowing to a canter from a full on gallop. The roaring inside settles into a dull hum. She almost feels the gears in her brain click back into place and reengage.

Lightning considers Fang's question, evaluates herself and realizes that she's really more stunned than anything. There's a small headache settling behind her eyes now, radiating from where her head smacked into the wall. She reaches her hand up, touches the small lump and pulls away dry fingers. No blood.

Fang's fingers join hers, press and pain lights up her head like fireworks. She hisses and jerks away from the probe.

"Rung your bell good, eh?" Fang's question is more of a statement. She peers into Lightning's eyes and says, "I don't think it's serious. Do you?"

Lightning takes a moment to assess before shaking her head. She's a tad dizzy, but she has a feeling that's a byproduct of the overall trauma rather than the whack to the head. "I'm alright." Her throat aches and she realizes that she's yelling. Fang waves her hand up and down in a 'keep it down' gesture.

"Sorry," Lightning says.

"I think you blew out an eardrum," Fang says.

"Wonderful," Lightning replies with as much dry sarcasm as she can muster. "What the hell happened?"

"Your boy over there got a little too uppity. Called up his Eidolon to open the door." Nothing about that explanation makes any sort of sense to her.

"Huh?" is all she can think of to ask. Something brushes against her ear and she yelps before she realizes that it's Hope's fingers. She turns towards him, catches sight of a smear of blood across his fingertips.

"It's my fault Light. I wanted the door open and Alexander, um...opened it." Lightning spends a moment staring at Hope, wondering why she can't figure out what the hell he's talking about. She's afraid she may have hit her head harder than she thought and probes at the lump again.

"With extreme prejudice," Fang supplies, lips twitching in a smile, and the pieces all click into place. Alexander must have sensed Hope's need and distress and appeared to offer aid; or rather, it's own enormous Eidolon brand of aid.

In other words, it blasted the door right open, and to hell with anyone standing near it.

Lightning sighs, giggles, then bursts out into laughter that sounds muted and just shy of hysterical to her. Hope looks even more upset so she struggles to get herself under control.

They really never are going to catch a break, are they?

Fang stands up and holds out a hand to her. Lightning grabs on and lets Fang drag her back to her feet. The world tilts on its axis a bit and she wobbles before gaining her balance.

"You alright, Light?" Hope looks nervous and guilty.

"Vertigo," Lightning replies. Hope's whole body sags and she follows up with, "It'll pass soon. Don't worry about it." She puts an arm around Hope's shoulders and wonders if it's to comfort him, or to keep her upright.

Perhaps it's a bit of each.

She looks over Hope's head to see Sazh pulling Snow to his feet. Snow looks pale, bruised and maybe a little more ragged than earlier, but unharmed on the whole. Snow's eyes meet hers and he grins and winks at her. She huffs out one exasperated laugh.

"You alright, Sis?" Snow shouts. She can tell because a.) she can hear it and b.) Sazh covers both ears with his hands and scowls.

"Yeah. Except for the fact that some big jerk mashed me into the wall," she yells back. Hope shrugs away from her, and shoves his finger in his ear and wiggles it around. "Oh, and I'm deaf."

"Yeah? Me too!" Snow yells and laughs. "Door's open, though, so I call it a win!" He points at the big gaping maw that is now where the ornate doors hung only minutes before.

She nods, feels her head spin and float a bit before settling back on her shoulders. Snow walks towards her, shooting for casual and failing. Hard to look casual when you're stumbling like a drunk, she figures. Snow grabs Hope by the back of the neck and says, "Nice work, kid."

"What the hell are you talking about? I almost killed you," Hope snaps.

"Nah! Not even close." Snow turns toward her with a confusing and expectant look on his face. "Right, Sis?"

_Oh._ "Right," she agrees. "We're fine. Don't worry about it, Hope. There's no harm done." Hope doesn't look like he quite believes her, but it's obvious that he wants to. She looks at the open doorway. "Let's get out of here."

* * *

The door doesn't lead outside, much to Lightning's chagrin. Judging by the looks on her friends' faces, she decides they're all feeling the same brand of pissed off as she is right now.

Instead of fresh air and the great outdoors, they encounter a dark stairway. Lightning rolls her eyes and heaves a deep sigh as she climbs the steps, afraid that vertigo will send her down the stairs onto her head. Each ascending step clears her head a bit. The ringing in her ears dies down to a light buzz, and she feels some real hope that they may actually escape this place without further incident. She reaches the of the staircase, encounters a door that she prays leads outside.

She turns the knob on the door-this one normally sized-and finds it locked. She swears so loud that everyone stops moving.

"Well, now we know where the kid heard that word, don't we?" Fang breaks the silence and tension in one hit. "And you were blaming me!"

Snow grabs onto the doorknob and twists it back and forth and a mini-tantrum. He growls before punching the door with all his strength. The rotting wood snaps like toothpicks under the strength of Snow's onslaught. The door swings open, bangs off the wall and slams back into the frame. Wood rains down from the door and frame like leaves in autumn. Lightning shoots Snow a look she hopes conveys her aggravation, kicks aside the wood chips and pushes the broken door open on its hinges.

The door does not lead outside.

"For the love of...how big is this place?" Sazh gripes. Lightning can't help but agree with him. She's sick of Mah'Habara. She's sick of Gran Pulse secrets. She's sick of Gran Pulse! She just wants to get to Oerba before she turns into a Cie'th, or dies. Or both.

Lightning steps through the doorway. The new room is darker than the rotunda with a ceiling that is more peaked than rounded. From the inside, it's conical. She figures from the outside (if they ever get outside, that is) it's a spire. There are rows of wooden benches in various stages of decay, all facing away from the destroyed door.

Or towards what can only be an altar at what must be the front of the room.

"Bloody hell," Fang gasps.

_It's a church. _The thought is as dry and flat as a cracker. She can't seem to dredge up any sort of wonder anymore. She may have hit maximum capacity. Or maximum exhaustion. She's not sure.

"It's a Church," Hope echoes her thoughts, but not her sentiments. He seems appropriately awed. He steps away from her and towards a golden statue.

"So it is," Snow grumbles. His tone conveys just how much he does not care. Lightning glances at him and sees a bruise blossoming bright red on his forehead. "How do we get out?"

Lightning can't help but agree with Snow. She's exhausted and in desperate need of fresh air and sleep. Preferably lots of both and, you know, immediately.

"Fang." Vanille's voice contains a sharp edge of fear that has all Lightning's hair standing at attention. "We need to get out of here."

"What's wrong Vanille?" Sazh asks. He draws his weapons and moves closer to the frightened girl. "What happened?"

Vanille's eyes are so wide that Lightning can see the whites around the irises. Her fingers look like bone where they clench her weapon, and the trembling in her body rattles the top of the Tiger Claw like a maraca. Lightning tenses, pulls her own weapon and scans for threats. She walks towards Vanille, eyes sweeping every shadowed corner of the room.

"What's going on Vanille?" Lightning asks, proud that she's managed to keep her voice steady. Vanille tends to take things in stride.

"Fang? Is this...? Is it?"

Not exactly helpful.

"Is it what?" Lightning prompts. Vanille stares helplessly at Fang, waiting for something that Lightning can't deduce. Lightning's dwindling patience disappears. "Fang! What the hell is going on?"

Fang puts her hands on her hips and raises an eyebrow and Lightning's insides clench. Fang's doing a fair approximation of looking unaffected, but Lightning recognizes the defensive posture. It's Fang's 'tell.' When Fang's afraid, she gets angry.

It's one of the things she and Fang have in common.

Fang glances around the room. Instead of relaxing, Lightning sees her tense even further. She's looks brittle and rigid, more like a statue than the hot tempered woman Lightning knows her to be. Lightning opens her mouth to turn her question into a demand when Fang finally speaks up.

"It's the Temple of Etro." Fang's declaration makes Vanille gasp. It means absolutely nothing to the rest of them.

"So what?" Snow yells, shocking Lightning from her blank confusion. "Who cares? Let's just get the hell out of here."

"You don't understand," Fang grits out.

"You're right. I don't. Why don't you explain it? Or are we still going to get cryptic bullshit answers?" Lightning narrows her eyes at Snow, wonders if perhaps he's given himself a concussion. Snow can be a jerk, but this sort of open hostility is uncharacteristic and worrying.

"Snow?" She approaches him, and he glares at her with...hatred? She stops dead. "Are you alright?"

"No, Lightning. I'm not alright. I'm sick and tired of all the secrets. We don't have time to waste trying to coax answers anymore." He deflates a bit, reaches up and touches his forehead over his right eye. His fingers tremble where they light on his brow. He closes his eyes in pain, or exhaustion, or some combination of the two. "I just...we..."

"Snow?" Her heart roars in her ears, pounds in her throat. She has a terrible, terrifying suspicion that what's happening to him is no concussion. She runs to him and gets to his side as the blood starts pouring from his nose. Snow stumbles sideways and she wraps both arms around him as he collapses into her. His weight and her exhaustion take them both to the floor with bruising force.

The stone is cool under her back. Snow's elbow presses into her throat cutting off a good percentage of her oxygen intake. He is dead weight on top of her, rendered unconscious by the changes twisting his body inside out. She feels his blood soaking into her shirt at her ribs. She struggles to get his elbow off her throat, slides it over and hears it crack against the floor next to her face.

She takes a full breath and opens her eyes to find Hope staring down at her with tear tracks on his face. He kneels down, puts his hand on Snow's back and his lips twitch downward, like he's fighting a full on bawl.

"Is he...?" Hope's voice breaks on a sob. Lightning can feel the blood flowing out of Snow onto her, so she knows his heart is still beating. She doubts that bit of knowledge will give Hope any sort of comfort.

"He's alive. He'll be alright." Vanille's voice floats from somewhere near Lightning's knees. She lifts her head up, tries to get a glance of Vanille over Snow's back, but can't see past him. Lightning's hand aches from the odd, awkward position, pinned as it is between her body and Snow's. Her wrist burns like she's sprained it.

She really needs to rest a bit.

"You're spending an awful lot of time on your back these days," Fang says and Lightning rolls her head to look at the other woman. Then rolls her eyes at her.

"Real nice," Sazh snaps. "I thought the Hero was the big charmer here."

"What? I'm just saying is all." Lightning can't bring herself to mind Fang's crass implications. She really does have a knack for distraction. Something she and Snow have in common, it seems.

"Would you make yourself useful and help me lift the Hero? He weighs a ton." Lightning can't disagree with Sazh's assessment, pinned as she is beneath Snow. Sazh and Fang lift and roll Snow onto his back beside her. Hope kneels down beside him, small hands twisted into the lapels of Snow's coat.

Sazh pulls Lightning upright. She thanks him and climbs onto her knees, every ache in her body throbbing at once to protest her perpetual self-abuse. She grits her teeth, ignores the pain and brushes her fingers over Snow's eyelashes. They flutter at the touch and she slaps him lightly on his cheek to rouse him further. "Come on. Open your eyes Snow."

For the first time Lightning can remember, Snow obeys her.

He blinks murky blue eyes once. Twice. They dart around in confusion then land on Hope's face. "What's wrong, Kid? What happened?" Snow reaches up a hand and grabs Hope's shoulder. "You okay?"

Lightning presses the heel of her hand into her eye, feels the moisture and is shocked to find tears. She can't figure out if it's the tension or the relief that sparked them but she dashes them from existence and hopes no one noticed. She exhales a shaky, stuttering breath.

"I'm fine," Hope says, surprising Lightning and himself. She'd been expecting a snarky, sarcastic answer from him. From the look on his face, she figures he'd been planning to deliver one. "How about you, you jerk?"

Snow blinks once and sits up, almost topples backwards from the apparent wave of vertigo. He shakes his head once, gives Hope a small smile and says, "I'm good." He looks over at her and winks. Then his eyes widen and he lunges at her.

Lightning is too stunned to move away. She wonders if Snow really has lost his mind. Or if she's transformed into a monster without any awareness on her part. Sazh gets a hold on Snow before he makes contact with her, but just barely.

"Hold up!" Sazh squeaks, muscles standing out at the strain of holding onto Snow.

"Let go!" Snow snarls. "She's bleeding! Sis?"

Lightning looks down at the blood covering her and comprehension dawns. He hadn't been trying to attack her. What would ever make her believe he would? Exhaustion, worry, fear, confusion. Head injury. Still, there's no real excuse for believing Snow would hurt her when all he's ever done is protect them.

"I'm fine. It's not mine."

"It's your blood Hero, not hers." Sazh's voice is even and calm. Lightning wonders why he believes that particular declaration is a comfort, but Snow subsides. Sazh lets him go.

"Oh. That's...well, not much better, is it?" Snow asks and Lightning can't help but snort. "What the hell is going on?" Snow asks. Lightning catches a glimpse of Hope's terrified face. Snow looks up at Hope, then at Sazh, then back to her. He's waiting for one of them to answer him. When no one does, he looks around the room. "Where are we?"

There's the rub.

"We were just discussing that when you decided to take a powder, Hero." Once again, Fang's phrasing is designed to incite rather than placate. Lightning usually appreciates it more than she does right now. Perhaps Lightning's sense of humor took a powder too.

"What?" Snow is too muddled to catch the biting sarcasm. He looks helpless and confused, and Lightning thinks she might hate Fang just a little right now.

"You...you passed out," Lightning says, choosing her words carefully and keeping her tone even.

Snow scoffs and she sighs. He looks around, blushes to the roots of his hair which is an odd and somehow endearing sight. He stares around the room as if he's never seen it before and she gets a terrible thought.

"Snow? What's the last thing you remember?" He focuses sharp eyes on her and she sees the fear and realization hit him. He's lost time. He's afraid to find out how much. "Snow?"

"Um..." He looks at his hands, picks at the cuts and tears on his knuckles. "I remember the..." he rubs his brow. "...The big door. The big, stupid door." He looks at her and she nods. That's not too terrible, if it's the last thing he remembers. He was right next to those doors when Alexander blew them to hell. The darkening bruise on his forehead indicates that he hit his head. Traumatic amnesia. It's possible.

She knows she's kidding herself.

"What else?" she prompts.

Snow's face scrunches up in the effort to remember. He rubs his forehead, shakes his head and says, "I don't know. I can't..."

"It doesn't matter," Hope interrupts. Snow looks at him and smiles. "Nothing happened since then that matters, alright? So, let's not worry about it." Hope's talking too fast. He's shaking. He's terrified and Lightning can't understand what's got him so amped up. She knows he's worried. Hell, she's really worried. But the bone deep fear that rattles through Hope is a whole different animal than what she's feeling.

"You're right, Kid," Snow says and Hope relaxes. "It doesn't matter. Let's go." Snow hauls himself back to his feet with none of his usual grace. She follows suit, body aching and groaning at each movement.

She hears a rumble as she straightens up, and wonders if the ground is shaking. She feels resigned anger at the very idea that they are about to be caught in an earthquake. It takes her brain a second to realize that the rumbling isn't around her.

It's behind her.

She looks over her shoulder and gets blasted by a gust of hot air and saliva. A massive canine head stares at eye level to her and she can't even register the shock of the first one barking in her face and blowing out her other eardrum before the second and third heads start howling.

Something in her _(Odin!)_ screams in recognition of the massive monster before her. She doesn't have any time for regrets as Cerberus pounces.

* * *

TBC... (hopefully much sooner.)

Yeah. Cerberus. How could I not throw him into this story? He's just too badass to ignore. Now I have ANOTHER fight scene to write. Have I mentioned that action scenes used to frighten me? Now...I LOVE THEM!

So, I had fully intended to get them outside in this chapter. But Snow just HAD to grab centerstage for a bit. The inspiration for the blown eardrum came directly from my own very recent experiences. Ever fly with an ear infection? No? You're lucky! My eardrum didn't blow (I hope) but I'm still pretty miserable. Oh, by the way-Don't snorkel when there's a Hurricane 50 miles away. You can't see anything, and it becomes more like 45 minutes of trying not to drown. And you get water in your ears. Hence, the infection.

Check my profile for notes regarding updates, etc. I do update there even when I can't update here!


	24. This is the Way the World Ends Part I

Disclaimer: This story is for entertainment only. I make no claims of ownership on the characters, places, or worlds. I bow to the greatness that is Square Enix. I have nothing of any real worth anyway. I have a car from the last century, the ashes of my dead beagle, and a three year old XBox 360 Elite. Oh yeah, an a really sick, twisted and overactive imagination. I have that too.

Thank you to my readers, and especially those of you who take the time to review. To any unsigned reviewers I apologize for not addressing you personally. Lee asked me an interesting question, and I felt it deserved an answer. It's at the bottom.  
The format in this one is a bit...different. I tried to keep it as clear as possible. Sorry if I throw you off. As for warnings-there's a lot of blood here, but if you managed to make this far in the story, I'm guessing you'll be able to handle it.

* * *

"Adversity draws men together and produces beauty and harmony in life's relationships, just as the cold of winter produces ice-flowers on the window-panes, which vanish with the warmth."  
-Soren Kierkegaard

Dirge [durj]. noun.  
1. a chant of lamentation for the dead  
2. the funeral service in its solemn or sung forms  
3. any mourning song or melody.

-This is the Way the World Ends Part I:  
The Dirge of Cerberus-

The whole world ends in one moment, as worlds are wont to do.

Every part of Lightning goes cold and frozen in the face (faces!) of the three headed demon dog. Her body tenses in anticipation of saving itself, but her mind overrides the drive. Lightning knows she's very fast, but she's pretty positive that she's not fast enough to grab her weapon and disable three giant canine heads before one of them rips her throat out. The knowledge rankles so much more because it is an absolute truth. So she does something completely counterintuitive and contrary to her nature.

She does nothing at all.

Lightning hears her friends shouting. The words are garbled, lost in the chaotic swirl of simultaneous barking, growling and howling, and she ignores them. What good are words now anyway? Words will not sway her executioner from its chosen task anymore than they will give her the time or space to save herself.

Her fingers twitch toward her holster and she checks the motion and clenches her teeth. That she will die with her weapon holstered pisses her off more than the dying itself. She always expected to die violently and she's never shied from that inevitability. The idea never bothered her as it seemed to be a far better option than a slow, lingering death from disease. But when she took the time to picture her death, it's always been in the thick of battle, not standing idly like some sacrificial lamb. She feels her lip curl in disgust.

Nothing to be done about it now. Well, if this is to be her end, then she will face it as a soldier. She stares the monster in its eyes and raises her chin. She waits and pretends that she's not afraid.

Rather than ripping into her, Cerberus quiets its barking into a near subsonic growl and stares into her eyes. Sizing her up, or psyching her out.

The moment expands like an overinflated balloon.

Her heart pounds, her face flushes. Every hair on her body stands at attention. Tremors shimmy and rattle through her in jarring fits and starts, like muddy water through rusted pipes. Her jaw clenches so hard it squeaks. Training and instinct team up and scream at her to take action.

She holds perfectly still. A drop of sweat slips over her eyebrow, slithers across the thin skin of her eyelid, sticks on her eyelashes for a moment before stinging her eye.

She squints at the pain. The pungent humidity from the monster's breath is thick enough to curl her hair.

No one moves. She holds her breath until she feels faint.

She exhales in a hissed gust.

The balloon bursts and the world explodes into a frenzy.

The monster lets loose an earsplitting wail that echoes in the acoustical nightmare of a room. Lightning winces at the shock of the pain from her damaged ears. Cerberus moves in a blur and something hits her with the force of a freight train, sends her sprawling with an oomph. She gasps like a fish drowning on dry land, tries to wrestle some control over the crushing and tearing agony in her chest. She stares at the arched ceiling and recalls Fang's inappropriate and unfortunately accurate comment from earlier. She really is spending too much time on her back these days. Lightning sucks in a mouthful of air, hoping to clear her mind, and chokes it back up with a mouthful of something bitter and burning.

There's a lancinating pain through her chest; her breathing is labored and wet. Something has given in there somewhere and part of her still has enough presence of mind to be alarmed. She tastes stomach acid and blood and something unidentifiable in the back of her throat and on her tongue. She hears a scream and wonders if it's hers before deciding screaming without air is impossible. Her chest burns; she's groggy and lethargic. She can't catch a breath or a thought. Her mind feels like a record skipping its needle with no hope of finding the right groove. She shakes her head roughly in hopes of righting everything and unscrambling her thoughts; all she gets for the effort is a skewering pain through her right eye that grays her vision and nauseates her.

She can't seem to muster enough control to do anything. She's disconnected from her body in what should be a frightening manner; like her body and mind have been through a hostile divorce, complete with restraining orders. She wonders if her instincts and will both exploded out of her with her breath, leaving her flailing on her back on the ground waiting for the deathblow.

She knows she's going to die right here and now if she doesn't act, but she can't get her fingers to tighten on her weapon, or her legs to lock enough to keep them under her. There's barking and slavering, slobbering and snarling; hot saliva raining down onto her face and fetid breath poisoning the air. The monster straddles her, puts one forepaw on her shoulder and presses. She feels the stab of claws mix with the crush of weight and screams as the bone cracks. Cerberus eases back and the rush of blood to the injured area increases the pain impossibly.

"Lightning!" She hears the shout. She's too lost in her own torment to decipher the speaker. She wants to tell them to run. She wants to beg them for help.

She says nothing.

The agony is bright and exquisite, and unfortunately familiar. She's pretty sure the monster managed to dislocate her shoulder again. Or perhaps it just pulverized it entirely. There's a rush of endorphins that, against all reason, does nothing to alleviate the pain whatsoever. She can't see through the fog of pain and the flood of tears. She tries to shout, but shouting takes breath and she has none left. The entire world is nothing but teeth and tongue, ragged, mangy fur, and an ever-shrinking periphery.

_Want to die then? Hmm? Do something already! _

Is it strange that the voice in her head is Fang's?

It's pure animal instinct that drives her to lift her legs and jam her heels into the monster's sternum. She catches it where its forelegs meet torso, anchors her feet and shoves. She presses with all her strength until her body is ramrod straight, then locks every joint. A wave of agony starts at her toes and ripples upward through her body until it forces its way out of her throat as a groan and her eyes as acidic tears. Her hips pop, her lower back burns and she might just amputate her own arm to relieve some pain when this is over. She feels a gust of scorching breath on her midriff followed by slimy saliva streaking over her ribs. Her muscles burn, her shoulder blades scrape along the stone floor like cheese over a grater and she knows she won't be able to hold this stalemate for long. She growls and gropes at her holster with leaden, numb fingers, pulls her weapon, thumbs off the safety and fires into the barrel chest before her.

The shot blows Cerberus back two paces and Lightning's aching body hits the stone floor like a sack of potatoes. The fall causes more damage that she doesn't bother cataloguing before she rolls into a backwards somersault. The maneuver lands her on her knees with her weapon drawn and aimed at her attacker.

She should feel better now that she's gained a bit of distance, gotten semi-vertical and managed to draw down, but her position on her knees is both tenuous and vulnerable. She's injured and flagging, bleeding from too many places to count, while Cerberus has recovered from the gunshot and is all the more riled for it.

A true predator cannot ignore such weakness in its prey, and Cerberus is every inch a predator. The three headed monster barrels forward and spins, swipes a wicked, razor tail at her. She flinches away but the swipe comes so close to her face that she senses the air stir, feels the suggestion of violence and tastes the certainty of the death that mutant tail can and will deliver. She crabwalks backwards, struggling to get her feet under her and not lose or misfire her weapon. She lacks all her natural poise, speed and grace, and her training seems to have deserted her. Her body moves like a wet sandbag. She feels like a crash dummy after it has been pulverized: loose and stiff in all the wrong places. The long weeks of metaphorically treading water have culminated into this one moment of complete bone-weariness. She digs deep into her bag of tricks hoping to pull out some eleventh hour miracle and finds only lint. Her reserves are empty: she's tapped that well and drained it dry.

She's going to die.

The realization irritates her.

She's not afraid anymore, nor particularly upset. What does that say?

It doesn't matter. There's enough human-enough Lightning-in her to keep her fighting for her life. She fires rounds at the approaching monster and hopes that lady luck might decide to cut her a break for once.

She really should know better by now.

The monster slows and roars, bows its heads and prepares to ram her. She aims her weapon at the top of the skull and prays that her round will pierce the thick bone plating at the same time she knows that it never ever will. Some useless trivia in her brain seems to insist that the canine skull is thickest at the front and Cerberus is no mere canine. Firing at this monster's skull has a better chance of killing her than it does the charging beast.

No matter. It's her only option. She tightens her finger on the trigger.

Bright light flares before her, accompanied by a searing heat blast that sends her back onto her ass on the floor. She hears a howl, smells burning hair, burning skin and smoke. She tries to see through the hot mess before her to see what is happening.

Another fire spell lights up the room, this one close enough and hot enough to incinerate the light downy hairs on her arm. She chokes and tears well from the smoke. She blinks, rubs at them and a familiar silhouette steps between her and the fire; between her and Cerberus.

"You can't have her!" The words are strong and sure and absolutely horrifying.

_HOPE!_ The fear that deserted her earlier returns to hit her hard and low.

"Get off your back already and hurry the hell up!"

"Move it, Soldier! Get clear!"

"No!" The heat of Hope's fire spell obliterates her weariness, reduces it to little more than ash in the wind. She's on her feet behind him without a second thought for the long, painful process of standing. She snatches Hope's arm in an attempt to haul him behind her and clear of danger. He doesn't budge. If anything, he plants himself like he's put down roots and hurls another powerful spell at the stalled Cerberus.

Yellow eyes meet hers and narrow. Lips pull back and show her three sets of very large, very sharp teeth.

Correction: the incredibly pissed off Cerberus.

She's more alert than she's been in weeks. It's as if someone has pulled some invisible cord or flipped a switch inside her. She's gone from useless prey back to top of the food chain predator in the span of three heartbeats. All her pain recedes into the background. Her heart kicks at her ribcage so hard she half expects the bones to shatter. She cannot decide what option will keep Hope safe-attack or retreat, but she's pretty good with either one now. She wraps the fingers of her left hand around Hope's bicep and keeps a solid grip on her weapon with her right hand.

Things are moving too quickly for her brain to catch up. She feels Hope's heartbeat raging through the artery running beneath her fingers, throbbing out a Morse code message of terror. She pulls on his arm as the monster lunges; she drags Hope against her body and twists, presents an enemy her back voluntarily for the first time in her memory. She pulls Hope's face into her neck, feels the vibrations of his yelling through the fine bone of her clavicle. She squeezes tighter and waits for the pain.

A moment passes and nothing happens. She should be dead but is not. She should be split asunder and splayed wide. Hope should be dead. They are both still whole and she doesn't know why. She intends to keep them that way and to hell with reasons. She shoves Hope away from her, watches his arms pinwheel as he tries to keep his feet. She shoves again, watches him stumble backwards a few paces.

_Good enough._

"Stay back," she yells at him. He's too shocked to hurl curses at her now. _Good. _If they live, she'll let him scream at her later.

She puts him from her mind, turns to face her enemy and sees Cerberus bucking like a bronco. The sight pulls her up short. She stares and tilts her head at the sight, trying to understand what is happening. The monster shimmies and shakes, rattles and rolls. Its hackles rise as it snorts. It ducks and she gets a glimpse of the cause of its woes.

Snow.

"Move it, Sis!"

The big jerk has somehow mounted the monster and gotten a grip on its center head. She can see the muscles of Snow's arms bulge as he wrenches at the monster's head in an attempt to thwart its attack. Lightning blinks to clear her narrowing vision and wonders what lovely injury this battle will yield; wonders if she'll ever have the opportunity to catalogue the damage. Wonders why she's thinking about such ridiculous nonsense when she's still in the thick of battle and two paces from an Eidolon bent on destroying them; an Eidolon that came flying out of nowhere with no one to bring it to heel.

Wonders if any of this is actually happening.

She shakes the thoughts away, tries to sharpen her focus and direct her attention back where it needs to be in order to survive. She trains her Edged Carbine on the monster, keeps her finger on the trigger guard rather than the trigger to prevent a mishap. She's too punchy and weary to trust herself not to shoot Snow right now if she squeezes. She grits her teeth and does something that has never been her forte.

She waits.

She can see Fang circling behind Cerberus for a good angle of attack. She can feel the shockwaves ripple through the air as Hope weaves his magic into a protective barrier around himself. She can hear Sazh's voice but she can't make out the words. She ignores them all and waits. She watches as Snow tightens his legs for leverage and tries to lock his hands around the monster's neck. He misses the grip, slips just the smallest bit.

She sees what's going to happen a split second before it does. She has enough time to go cold; enough time for her stomach to flip, twist, and migrate up her throat in an attempt to evacuate. She has enough time to think of how she's failed her sister all over again. She has time to wonder why she's just standing there instead of doing something.

She has enough time to realize that the world is ending, but she does not have enough time to save Snow before the monster's far right head manages to somehow get its mouth around Snow's right hand.

Snow's screams drown out the rest of the universe. It's like entire world freezes in stunned silence. Her heart stops. There's a swathe of tingling gooseflesh that starts at her pate, slips over her shoulders and traces down her spine. Her teeth chatter a bit before she hardens her jaw, grits her teeth together so hard they may just grind into dust.

She's helpless to do anything as blood pours from the monster's mouth, oozes from between its clenched jaws. Her thoughts scatter. The monster jerks once and Snow flops off its back like a ragdoll, hits the ground with a hard, wet thud. The right head shakes furiously reminding Lightning of a dog with a rope toy. Or a dead animal.

Blood cascades down Snow's arm and he struggles to get his feet back under him in order to gain some leverage to retrieve his ruined arm. Lightning moves her finger from guard to trigger, aims for an eye. She's afraid she might accidentally shoot Snow at the same time that she knows she has no choice. Doing nothing means she'll have to stand here and watch him get dismembered. She exhales a calming breath, steadies her hand starts to squeeze...

...Then the left head grabs hold onto Snow's right leg at the calf, tearing his feet from beneath him. His body hangs like a morbid and flailing necklace across the massive monster's necks. The sound that comes from him is pure animal agony. Or did it come from her? Her throat is raw with screaming as the center head gets its jaws around Snow's ribs. And each head just...pulls.

Blood spurts like a volcanic eruption, splashes over her arms and chest, into her eyes and open mouth. She hears the cracking-squelching-gurgling-whimpering before everything disappears into a swirl of black fury.

* * *

Her lungs and throat burn like she's been breathing salt water. Her body is wet, clammy and gross. She's trembling and twitching like she's been hit with a cattle prod. Sweat and who knows what else saturate her, and rise from her in near visible waves of odor. Her heart is raging like a maniacal kangaroo but she doesn't know why. She shuffles through her memory, digs long bony fingers in and feels everything strain through them like sand.

She blinks, gets stabbed through the eye with pain and an image of three mouths full of yellow teeth, crusted with blood, barking and snapping. She gasps and buckles under the weight of the memory.

Cerberus.

There's no sign of the Eidolon in question and part of her wonders if it was ever there. Perhaps she imagined it and in her delirium did something unthinkable. The idea is far less preposterous than it should be.

"Soldier!" Sazh shouts from behind her. His voice is strained and thin and full of fear. It's such a foreign sound that she whips around, bloodied blade held aloft and ready.

"What the hell are you just standing there for? Get your ass over here, you crazy bitch!" Fang shouts. "We need help!"

There's blood everywhere. Fang looks like she's spent a month in a slaughterhouse. Sazh looks like he's taken a job as chief surgeon on the frontlines.

Lightning's legs feel like rubber and lead at once. Every muscle in her body twitches and aches. Moving feels like the most impossible task she's ever undertaken. Her Edged Carbine drags at her arm like an anchor. She finds that she can't lift it when she tries. She wonders at the cause of the damage...

"Light!" Hope yells, voice full of grief and tears. It wakes her up, drags her from her meanderings and gets her moving. She unfurls her cramped, sweaty hand from its stranglehold on her weapon and the Edged Carbine clangs to the floor with a hollow thud. She feels naked now that she's unarmed for the first time in months, but she can't worry about it. She moves toward the bloodied mass of people and gets her first real look at what they are fussing about. Or rather, who they are fussing about.

_Snow._

Lightning drops to her knees beside him and just stares. She can't see the damage to his right leg past the blood. His trouser leg is soaked with it. There's a tourniquet (his bandana, she realizes) tied far too tightly just above the ravaged part of his calf, and somehow blood still pours out of him like a geyser. She catches a glimpse of the strings of muscle and macerated meat. Something in her brain whispers amputation to her and she shushes it for all she knows it's right.

Still, the leg wound is by far the least serious injury.

Snow still has a hand, but it's a very near thing. Three of his fingers have been severed but for a small flap of skin holding them to the palm. All the tiny bones in the hand look as if they've been pulverized. There's almost no discernable form or shape left beyond the vague outline that the still whole flesh forms. It looks more like a glove made from blood and meat than anything that started its existence attached to a person.

Her head spins, and her stomach joins it for a twirl.

There's a gouge through his wrist and Lightning can see the twin bones of the forearm, chipped and fragmented though they may be, shining through the chasm. His brand is decimated, and seems smaller and shriveled. It's like it knows he's dying and is abandoning him with each heart beat. Tendons, muscles and ligaments all hang out of the wound like so much shredded meat. Blood fountains out in gouts and bursts from the severed artery, slowing with each gush.

And as horrific as this injury is, it is still not the worst of them.

There are punctures in Snow's torso: deep stabbing lacerations that pour copious amounts of blood out both the front and back. Sazh has his jacket wadded and pressed hard against the worst of the wounds in Snow's side, but the blood keeps seeping through. The one small puncture that she can see looks round and clean, edges smoother than they have any right to be considering the violent thrashing. She pushes the jacket aside for a moment to get a look at the damage and finds that the entire mess of wounds appears innocuous-would perhaps even be innocuous if not for their positioning through Snow's chest and gut. She cannot begin to imagine the damage done to his internal organs, nor which organs may be compromised. She's no doctor, after all. She's not certain where the liver is in relation to kidneys or bladder. But she does not need to know where they are located to know that they are, in fact, there. And she does not need to be a doctor to know a mortal wound when she sees it.

Snow is dying. Not in some distant nightmare or abstract future but right here and now, under her hands.

She feels acid burn her throat. Her body shakes so hard she thinks she might unravel. She swallows, inhales, balls up her panic and hurls it as far as she can. She needs to keep her head and her cool. She can't afford to curl up and lick her wounds. She steadies herself, places her hands on Snow's face and calls his name.

Murky blue eyes blink open, flutter closed, then slot open again. She watches him swallow down a mouthful of blood, sees his blood coated tongue poke between his lips in a vain effort to moisten them before he wheeze-crackles, "Sis, you 'kay?"

Is she okay? Her body jitters again, threatens to collapse around her.

_Get a grip, Lightning._

"Yeah, I'm fine." A shameless lie, but he's in no position to call her on it. "But you're not doing so good here, Hero."

Snow lets out a small gasp that probably started its life as a sarcastic scoff. "Nnn." His teeth are coated with blood. He blinks at her. "Think I really screwed up. Wha' can I say? Dumb blond, right?"

"Don't." It's too much for her. She changes the subject. "How bad is the pain?"

He gives a weak shake of his head, coughs more misted blood into her face. "Unn. Can't feel much. Think that's," he gasps and something whistles and gurgles, "...good thing?"

No. And yes. She remembers the snapping; figures his back went when the three heads decided to play tug-of-war with his body. Of course considering the state of his body, paralysis may be a mercy. The shock of the pain would have killed him by now.

"Hope 'kay?" His voice is thick and choked with blood. She can hear him struggling for air. Guilt slams her like an anvil dropped from a building. Snow is bleeding all over the ground and is probably drowning in his own blood and he's still got the presence of mind to worry about Hope. She hasn't given Hope a second thought since she shoved him away from her during the fight. She looks up, catches sight of Hope's red, crumpled, tear and snot streaked face.

"I'm fine," Hope sobs. There's no trace of his usual teenage bitchery in his voice. Only a raw, tearing grief that has probably been buried in him since his mother died. Hope's body shudders and he presses his face into Snow's chest and heaves out huge, loud, bellowing sobs. The sound of his sorrow makes her eyes sting and her heart ache. She slams the window on her own feelings. There's too much at stake now. She can feel things later. Now's the time for action.

"nnn. Dn't cry, kid."

The broken words just make Hope cry harder. His back pistons up and down with the force of his weeping. He babbles something into Snow's bloodied clothes that Lightning can't understand. She reaches out her hand to card through Hope's hair, stops just shy of touching and stares at her bloodied fingers.

Something tickles at her frantic, exhausted mind. Words and fragments pour through like sand through an hourglass.

_/Do you trust me?/  
/What the hell was that?/  
/You were dying/  
/I've never seen anything like that before./  
/Show me your brand./  
/you're playing with forces you don't understand./  
/...but it worked./_

"I can fix him," flies out her mouth before her brain can check the comment. She feels the absurd truth of the statement in the core of her being.

"Soldier..." Sazh says and shakes his head. "Don't do this to yourself."

She can feel her entire body shaking in denial of what he's saying. Her hair brushes her shoulders on every pass. "No!" She grabs Sazh by his shoulders, fingers brutal and clutching. "No Sazh! I can fix this. You know I'm right." Sazh shakes his head and sighs. The gesture smacks of disappointment and wariness, not denial.

She can deal with disappointment. She's been dealing with it longer than she can remember.

Hope quiets his crying and looks up at her with bloodshot eyes and a blood streaked face. "What do you mean? How can you save him?"

Lightning looks over at Fang and Vanille. Vanille's working on stopping blood loss with bandages and poultices and spells. They make no difference; it's like trying to dam an ocean with popsicle sticks. She refuses to look up from her task long enough to dispute Lightning.

Fang stares hard at her for a long moment before nodding. "Guess we're both crazy bitches then. Alright. Let's do this thing. " She looks at Vanille and says, "You in, love?" Vanille doesn't look up or hesitate. She just nods and lets out an 'uh huh!'

"Sazh?" Lightning prompts. She needs them all. Not Hope. Not for her part anyway. He's a strong medic and she needs him to cast his little ass off right now. But she can't do this without Sazh, and she won't do it without his permission. This is an all or nothing deal. Even with all of them doing their thing, she figures she's got even odds at best of killing all of them.

It doesn't matter anymore.

She puts her hand on Snow's forehead, feels the icy clamminess. His breathing is shallow and bloody. He's almost gone. It's now or never. "Sazh?" she repeats.

Sazh heaves a sigh hard enough to stir her hair. He gives her a vague nod. "I've trusted you since the day I met you, Soldier. Why would I stop now?"

She'll be touched by that statement later. She's got too much to do to get sentimental.

She doesn't want to ask. She swore she'd save him, but something Snow said to her a thousand years ago on the Archylte Steppe strengthens her resolve. Something about saving Hope at the cost of her life, and how that might destroy Hope. She may not be the best judge of emotions, but she can see Hope's grief here. To deny him an opportunity to do all he can would be worse that asking him to risk himself. She looks at Hope, takes his hand and says, "You need to call up your very best healing spell here, Hope."

He pales and stammers out a "But..."

"Trust me." He considers her for a heartbeat before nodding.

"I always trust you, Light. " It's a ridiculously naive sentiment. If he'd said it to her back on Cocoon she'd have smacked him upside his head for it. She can't bring herself to be anything but immensely grateful for it right now. She takes Hope's hand and pulls him beside her. "This will work, right? I mean, he's a jerk but..."

_...but he's vital_. Hope doesn't need to say it. She can see the truth inscribed on everyone.

Vanille is bloody and weary, but still working at saving Snow's leg despite the futility of her actions.

Fang's knuckles are white from the pressure she's applying to Snow's wounds.

Sazh is steady and sure and so, so calm.

So much faith and love here. She hopes she can come through for all of them.

"Sis." She looks down at him, amazed he's still able talk. Amazed he's still alive. Amazed by him and his strength.

"Yeah?"

"You tell Serah...love her." She's shaking her head in denial before he finishes his sentence. She wipes blood from the corner of his mouth from his lips with her thumb, combs his hair back from his face, and lets her hand rest on his clammy forehead.

"You'll tell her yourself."

He lets out a wet snort, amused by some private joke. He swallows, closes his eyes, and whispers "think...m'be you're...blond too."

Fang snickers. Lightning smiles but wastes no more time. He's nearly gone now, and she doubts she can call him back from the dead. That power rests in hands far greater than her own, and she wouldn't want it. She lifts his ruined hand and places it over her brand. She feels his blood smear over her skin, drip down through her cleavage to pool in her naval.

She feels a tingle through her body, like pins and needles, only everywhere at once. She clamps her left hand over his ruined brand and her fingers go numb, she reaches out her right hand, feels calloused fingers catch it and press it against a warm, solid sternum. She feels the heart beneath her palm beat steady for a few seconds before accelerating madly.

Everything goes white. She can no longer feel the heartbeat beneath her right hand, or the blood and ruined flesh beneath her left. She can't feel the cold stone beneath her knees, or the warmth of Hope's body at her side. Gone is the feeling of stale, stagnant, chilled air kissing her skin. She feels like she's caught in a live circuit, power passing through her body in waves of agonizing ecstasy. She imagines that this is what being struck with lightning might feel like if she were to be struck repeatedly over minutes rather than hit with one bolt. It's like she's being ripped apart over and over and then remade ten thousand times in a moment. Every nerve in her body lights up with pain-fire-ice-pleasure. Every muscle flexes and contracts simultaneously. She feels like she's turning inside out.

It goes on forever. She holds on until the last shreds of her consciousness burn away like mist in the morning sun.

Then she's gone.

* * *

_She is at peace. She's floating and flying, suspended and cradled. There is warmth, and calm here. She feels no more anger, or fear. Months of knuckle-gnawing terror are no more consequential than a mosquito bite._

_She is at peace, but do not mistake this to mean things are peaceful. _

_There is death everywhere. Around her she can hear the screams echoing like birdsongs on a spring morning. The air smells of ash and decay. She breathes deeply and feels a smile tug at her lips at this sweet perfume. The gutters run red with rivers of blood and she dips a finger in one to taste the ambrosia._

_Peace is overrated anyway._

_The chaos that once lived within her now swirls around. She wonders at her newfound quietude, finds that she can't drum up enough concern to worry over it. What's to worry for anyway? She has no cares now, and that seems like a preferable state to the burning anxiety and tension that have been her constant companions for...she can't even remember how long. _

_The memories float away like wisps and she watches them go. Another loss, this one the greatest gift she's ever received. She turns her gaze back outward._

_It's like a massive hurricane swirls around her and she stands in the calm of its eye. She is the vortex devouring everything around her. She stares at the wreckage and devastation with an unaffected eye. The animals die under her gaze, succumb to the plague of her presence. The plants wither as she passes, her presence poisonous. Unholy. She feels no satisfaction in the death and destruction of life. Neither does she feel remorse. She is a force of nature now, possessed of all the conscience and culpability of a tidal wave. _

_Bones crunch like nutshells beneath her heels. Bodies squelch like grapes in the relentless grip of her hands. She drops them to the ground, and feels the fluids ooze between her toes like watery mud. She yawns, looks to the heavens and marvels at the enormity of the universe. Stars reach into forever. What care have they for brief dust motes?_

_Why then should she care for the scampering vermin-this infestation-plaguing this world. They destroy each other and their land with no thought for consequences. She is simply doing en masse what their small, ineffective hands could not. They should thank her for her generous and efficient gift. _

_There is a peace that can only be found on the other side of war. She has found it, claimed it-and now she shares it._

_She is the hand of the gods come to wipe clean all slates. _

_She is the Destroyer. _

* * *

Consciousness slams into her with the force of a nuclear weapon. She's not even aware her eyes are open until the burn and blur forces a blink. She blinks again because it seems like the thing to do. The pain in her head is exquisite, like someone is taking a boning knife and is carving designs into her brain. Her neck is twisted at an unnatural angle; she'd worry that it's broken except she can feel every throbbing-stabbing pain from her temples to her toes.

She wishes she were dead.

She doesn't understand what happened to her. She feels as if all of her bones have collapsed into piles of salt that now burn the tender flesh of her muscles and organs. She remembers the slugs that children would salt just to watch them wither.

She wonders if she will simply shrivel and blow away. She spends a moment hoping for that ending before deciding that melodrama doesn't suit her.

She opens her eyes again and groans. She wants to move but knows that if lying still hurts, moving will be agonizing. She's not sure she's ready to introduce new pain into her life right now. It feels like she's spent hours recreating her birth using stone and plate glass in place of flesh and placenta. Her joints all feel as if they've been detached, flipped over and reassembled upside down. Her head feels like it's been cracked open like an egg and then glued back together again with some flimsy adhesive. She shifts her head and swears she feels her brain slosh around.

Whomever glued her skull back together seems to have used something less than binding. She expects the contents of her head to spill all over the floor. Hell, it might be an improvement.

She's not certain how long she lays there, but she decides that it is definitely enough time for her head to have fallen apart if that was its plan. As she is still in one piece, she decides that it is time to stop laying around and start doing something.

Why is she laying around anyway?

The question is enough to force her to unfurl her limbs from their cramped positions and haul herself upright. She keeps her eyes closed through the movement vertical in an attempt to minimize sensory input. She is too raw to handle more than one sense at a time, and in too much pain to ignore. Vision will have to wait.

She makes it all the way to her feet despite the stabbing pains that assault her with every gesture. She rolls her shoulders and gets walloped with a spike of agony that she hadn't been anticipating. She hears the hollow wet thud in her shoulder, feels the bones grating and sawing on one another. She's pretty certain that something is grinding against her clavicle, and possibly up against her shoulder blade as well.

What the hell happened to her?

She opens her eyes and the world spins crazily. She widens them, blinks and keeps them bugged in an effort to find a stable horizon. The world focuses enough for her to wish she'd kept her eyes shut.

There are bodies around her, covered in more blood than she's ever seen. Cold terror fills her when she tries to remember what happened and realizes that she has no idea how she ended up in the middle of this carnage.

She roots around for the memory but the effort makes her head hurt worse. She abandons the effort to relieve the pain; decides it doesn't matter right now anyway. She can think later. Right now, every fiber of her body is telling her to get the hell out of this charnel house, and she couldn't agree more.

Her skin itches; the air is close and stale, like the room has been sealed up for seasons. She takes a breath to calm herself and chokes on it. Something in her chest flutters in opposition to the rest of the movement and she can't help but wonder how the hell she managed to survive...whatever it is that happened here. She looks down the length of her body at the dried and drying blood, at the bruises blossoming like some sort of infectious disease, and decides that she sure as hell wasn't meant to survive it. Something did its best to send her to the grave for good.

Something in her gut twists, cramps, and she grabs for her abdomen and doubles over. The muscles in her thighs spasm under the force of the cramping. It feels as if she's being torn in half. Like she's being quartered as she's seen done to traitors who defied the elders.

_Wait. What? Traitors? Quartering?_

She has never seen any such thing. Has she?

The pain in her gut eases and she pushes herself upright. A new sharp pain develops behind her eye. It starts small and annoying but in seconds erupts into a fiery agony. It feels like something is pressing her eyeball out of her head from the inside. She jams the heel of her hand against the eye, hoping to either offer a counterpoint pressure, or keep the eye from flying out of its socket. She'll settle for either right now.

She opens her mouth and hisses and moans at the pain, wonders if she's dying after all. Then there's a brief popping agony and the pressure behind her eye eases for a moment. She doesn't get a chance to enjoy the reprieve before her nose starts bleeding like a waterfall.

She releases her eye and puts her hand beneath her nose to catch the blood gushing out of her. It's bright red, like fresh arterial blood, and she stares at it with a mixture of wonder and terror. The blood is thinner than she thinks it should be, like its mixed with water rather than mucus. She has a repulsive thought that her eye really has ruptured and the fluid is running out of her nose. She touches the eye again, feels it whole behind her closed lid and relaxes, though she knows she should not really feel better. Something is pouring from her nose other than this bright blood.

_/This bleeding isn't from your nose/_

The words come to her, though she knows neither why nor from where. The voice is unfamiliar, and the words nonsensical, yet it still opens a yawning chasm within her. If the words are true and the bleeding is really not from her nose, then it must be from something inside her head. Now, she's no expert on anatomy, but the only thing inside her head as far as she knows is her brain.

Her brain, or some part of it, is leaking out her nose.

She giggles, gags then sobs at the idea. She keeps her hand over her nose, feels the blood leaking between her fingers and sliding over the back of her hand to splish-splash onto the cold stone floor below. She looks down in morbid curiosity but there's too much other blood on the floor for her to find hers. All she accomplishes is a more rapid blood flow due to the advantageous downward angle of her head.

She tips her head back, tastes blood and brain fluid slide over her tonsils, down her throat and land hot in her churning stomach. The sensation kicks her vague queasiness up into full-blown nausea and before she realizes what's happening, she's collapsing to her knees to puke blood and bile (and possibly brain) onto the stained ground.

Her eyes water, her nose bleeds; her arms wobble and her knees feel shattered as she crawls away. She needs to get out of here. She needs a doctor to put her back together again. Another cramping pain twists through her and it feels as if her uterus and bladder may be trying to switch places with her lungs. She spits out a word that she's never even _heard,_ let alone spoken before.

Screw doctors! She needs a priest. She's obviously been possessed by some demon.

The idea horrifies her. She knows what they do to demons. What they do to l'Cie! She's seen the crucifixions, the hangings, the burnings. She's seen people flayed. Her people will not suffer l'Cie to live. It has been decreed!

She shoves herself upright and frantically checks her body for marks of the beast. Legs, arms, belly...chest.

She finds it beneath what looks like a bloody handprint and gasps out one word over and over, feels blood spatter and spray from between her moving lips.

"No no no no no no no."

A litany and prayer. But the pieces all click into place here. She's been infected somehow. Cursed. And she was taken to this room for execution, but somehow she's survived.

She's an abomination. As long as l'Cie live no one is safe. She should finish what the executioners started here. She should, but finds that she cannot will herself to commit suicide.

She needs to escape. She'll run away and never hurt anyone. No one needs to know she's survived. She won't hurt anyone. It's not in her! She doesn't feel like a monster. She lets that thought rattle around her bleeding brain a bit.

_I am not a monster. I'm...me._

Somewhat reassured by the realization, she hoists herself back to her feet and walks towards the doors at the front of the room. She reaches them, examines the ornate doors for a moment and then shoves her way through them. They groan and squeak, sounding like the hinges have not been properly tended in far too many years. The air that spills through the doors is crisp and cold. It raises goose bumps on her entire body.

It is full dark outside, the sky cloudless and crisp. She feels as if someone has unraveled a very tight knot from around her innards as soon as the door closes behind her. Outside is so welcome, like she's spent years trapped indoors. She leans back against the door for a moment, turns her face skyward and breathes. She can see every star in the heavens, as is typical of snowless winter nights. The air is dry and cold enough to hurt her lungs when she inhales. The grass is dry and brittle, and it crunches beneath her feet when she takes her first steps away from the door. Probably mid-winter then, though the sky looks...wrong to her somehow.

Her gaze traces over the largest body in the night sky. Cocoon shimmers like a cultured pearl in the heavens, beautiful and miraculous. She remembers believing that it must be some sort of magical gift when it first appeared in their heavens. It emitted such a wonderful light, brightening up the vast darkness of Gran Pulse.

She later learned that the light was reflected from the sun. Cocoon was not-is not-magical. Not magical and certainly not a gift. Too many have died since it appeared.

A wave of pain washes over her, drags her down to her knees with the force of its undertow. It feels as if someone is taking potato peeler to her brain and is shaving off bits and pieces of it. The blood continues to flow from her nose in a steady stream. It pours onto the dry ground like a sacrifice.

She's going to bleed to death.

She gropes around for the end of her cloak, catches it between weak fingers and draws it to her face. She pinches her nostrils together, feels the blood wetting and warming the cloth.

Another layer of brain is peeled away and tears brim in her eyes. She must have been poisoned. She can think of no other reason for such enduring agony.

She pushes off her forearms and sits back on her heels. She looks around her again and recognizes nothing.

Remembers nothing.

She has no idea where she is, or how she has gotten here. She must find her fiancé. He will know what has happened. He will...

_Wait. Who?_

She has no fiancé!  
He is dead. Murdered and desecrated.

_No, _her mind rejects. She is unmarried; unattached.

She is pregnant, standing at a parapet.  
She is starving in the streets.  
She is shouting in a coffin.  
She is bleeding.  
She is burning.

She screams at the confused mess inside her head. Dizziness overwhelms her as she gropes at the flashes of memory spiraling through and past her before they can disappear forever into the singularity within her. She feels as if she's being pulled apart, sucked downward. Flushed away like waste.

She is a black hole, devouring everything in the universe. Even the light.

Especially the light.

Something needles at her. Memories flirt with her like dancing girls. They flash a bit of leg here, wiggle their ass there, and as she reaches for them as they dance out of reach. She chases them, they run faster. There are impressions that float through the vacuum of her mind: soft hair beneath her palm, sliding between her fingers; moist breath against her throat; laughter vibrating through her; warm arms encircling her; cold stone under her knees.

Weighted darkness collapsing in on her.

Scorching blood raining down on her, spurting out of her, washing over her, flowing into her.

Her stomach does a shimmy-shake. Her brand flares up so hot she thinks her skin is blistering and melting, sloughing off like snakeskin. She presses her hand against her chest and is surprised when the brand feels no hotter than the skin around it. From the inside, she'd swear she was scalded or scorched.

The hairs on her neck prickle and raise. She shivers.

She is being watched.

She shakes her head. She is going mad.

Fingers grope at her hip in an unconscious and confusing gesture. She feels nothing, gropes lower and feels the leather of a holster. An empty holster.

Why would she have a holster? She knows nothing of weapons.  
_She needs to arm herself_.

She is a Lady.  
_She is a Soldier._

Her brand is ablaze; her nerves are frazzled.  
She is prey.

She hears the growl, drops and rolls toward the sound as the attacker pounces on the spot where she'd just knelt. The monster is huge and terrifying and familiar.

She has never seen it before.  
_She has always known it._

She rolls to her feet and gropes once again for the weapon in an obvious act of muscle memory. She lets out a loud curse as the giant predator ducks its head and pins her with its murderous gaze. She stares back at it.

It will kill her.  
_She must destroy it. Its death will grant her peace._

The animal charges her, leaps.

Three loud pops from behind her drop the animal. It collapses dead at her feet without so much as a whimper. Unfortunately, the surprise of the sounds nearly kill her too. Every muscle tenses, pulling on injuries and intensifying aches. Her heart climbs her throat like a ladder, pauses just below her jaw and hammers away there as if its debating whether to continue its ascent or return home.

The sounds bounce around a bit before fading away. Her brain supplies a reason, paints a landscape for her. Mountains. She is either on a mountain or in a valley, the space large enough to let the sound travel, but close enough to hurl it back at them before it loses intensity.

She has no idea how she knows this, just as she has no idea as to the identity of the bloodied man standing in the open doorway.

"Gotcha you big bastard!" The stranger yells. "That better be the last of those bastards because I, for one, am sick of them." Something flies out of the man's hair, hovers and makes an obnoxious sound, before slipping back into its nest. "You mind telling me where the hell you were going, Soldier?"

_Soldier._

The word feels right and wrong at once. She looks at the man again, finds something about him somewhat familiar. She trusts him though she doesn't know him and finds the sensation disturbing. This man knows her, and she knows him too. But she doesn't recognize him, though she feels that she must know him. Even though she doesn't know him.

_Huh?_

She's in no shape to follow her own train of thought here. Her head is spinning and tingling and aching at once. She feels like she might throw up or fall over. Both seem like great ideas.

"Hey now?" The man approaches her. "You okay?"

He has kind eyes. She wishes he would help her, so she asks him.

"Help," she whispers. The man splits into two men, then becomes one again. She blinks, stumbles and lands on her ass. The hit jars her, kicks the pain in her head up in intensity to about a million. It's like every wire in her head crosses and fires at once, all of them intent on transmitting agony to every nerve. Her muscles tense, her back arches. Her teeth shred her tongue and lips as she twitches and jerks. It goes on forever and ever.

The contortions ease into full body spasms. She feels tears pour from her eyes and her vision goes red. She lets out a sob and feels the blood start pouring from her nose again. She can't see now for the dizziness. She closes her eyes and feels the fatigue pulling at her, enticing her to rest. As she slips into unconsciousness, she wonders if she'll wake up in hell.

* * *

TBC...

Well, you had to know it was coming at some point right?  
I've done something even worse than a cliffhanger, haven't I? I left you with a completely unanswered question. It really couldn't be helped, but I'll understand if you hate me for it anyway.

Part 2 is almost done. You want it? Or should I save it for the New Year?

Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Yule, and Happy New Year. (I'm from New York. Queens County is the most culturally diverse county in the United States. I would wish you a Happy Festivus for the rest of us, but I have a feeling the overall crowd here is too young for that one.)

I am open for questions, comments, debates or requests. Feedback is love.

* * *

To Lee-First, thank you for reading and dropping me a line. I certainly do not mind you asking any questions. I have no medical training, but I research EVERY injury that I inflict upon these poor characters. (I figure if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right.) I read medical websites and medical journals to be sure I understand not just the symptoms, but what causes them. (Example-blood loss causes shock. Shock causes blood pressure problems, etc.) This way I can describe the effects without throwing around the diagnosis.  
Some other injuries I write from unfortunate experience. i.e - Lightning's dislocated shoulder. I have a 'posterior slipping shoulder' which is more painful than it sounds. My right shoulder slips out of the socket out the back, which oddly enough, happens in less than 2% of shoulder dislocations. Those 2% are usually caused by electrocution (I wasn't) or seizures (not that either. I'm just incredibly LUCKY!) Basically my shoulder slips, slides, grates and grinds, and all the muscles lock up and spasm-including the ones in my chest. I'm not sure if it's actually rubbing on the shoulder blade, or grating on the clavicle, but it sure as hell feels that way.

Anyway, that was my personal sidebar. I'm not offended if you don't care. Everyone has their own horror stories, after all. I am glad that the brutality rises to the level of realism. One of my biggest problems with popular media is the tendency to portray extreme violence without consequences. Now don't get me wrong. I don't think media is responsible for violent behavior. We all need take responsibility for our actions. I do wonder if it might not be beneficial to show the consequences of violence a bit more. There's so much show and glitz in the shootings and beatings. Perhaps if everyone had to look at a documentary about a person in a vegetative state and the family's living nightmare, people would be less inclined to hit each other in the head with things and expect their opponent to hop up like the bad guy in an action movie. On the flip side, the human body is capable of taking a tremendous amount of damage and not only surviving, but recovering (albeit much slower than they do in this story.) If you want proof of that, look up 'Alive Day.' Bring tissues if you do!

Sorry for the diatribe. I didn't mean to go off on a very long tangent there.


	25. This is the Way the World Ends Part II

Thanks to all who've read and reviewed. This one is a strange format again, but I don't think it's too distracting. Standard warnings will apply. Once again, if you've made it through the horror of Chapter 20, you're golden here.

I promised xlonelyaurorax that I would put this one up before the holidays. Fading Into Darkness told me I was a Sadist! (and I really, really am. Can't take offense when a person speaks only the truth.) I hope you enjoy this one and it answers some of the ten thousand questions that have not been addressed yet.

* * *

"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes they win."  
-Stephen King

"For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else."  
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is the Way the World Ends Part II:  
Conversations with Dead People

She's trapped. She can feel eyes on her: past and present, dead and alive. They all watch her sink into a blacfk pit in her mind with empty, hollow gazes. There are so many voices yelling, and most of them are hers.

"I NEED HELP!"

_Help might be good. _Through her agonized haze of pain, she feels fingers press into her throat. She tries to escape them, feels more hands grasping her head, holding her still.

"I don't...wha...What the hell happened?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know? She just started twitching," she's pretty sure she hears movement over her raging pulse, "then bleeding all over the place. And then she collapsed."

"Bloody wonderful." She's turned onto her side. She tenses up. She wishes these people wouldn't touch her. "Oh...this is...this so bad."

"Really? You think? That's very helpful."

"Screw you, funny-man," the woman snaps. Her voice is low pitched and calm, but there's a thread of tension woven through.

"Alright, alright. Just help me get her up." There are hands everywhere now, clutching and grasping. There are bugs under her skin, itching and burrowing and biting. She thinks her eyes are open but she can't see anything. She beats at the sensations, tries digging the bugs out with her fingernails and when her hands are immobilized, she screams.

_"Hold 'er still! I need to get these ropes tied." She can smell the stink of sour sweat mixed with too much booze and garlic. And maybe curry. The combination leaking out of his pores is sickening and she gags. His sweaty body presses against the full length of her as he cinches the ropes around her wrists and lashes them to the post behind her. "Now there dear-y, isn't 'at better?" _

_Invading fingers grope and grasp at her exposed body, squeezing her breasts until they turn red with fresh bruises. A clammy tongue licks a stripe from the corner of her clenched eye down over her cheek and across her pursed lips. Vicious fingers pinch sensitive skin and she hisses. The repulsive, sweat-soaked pig takes the opportunity to slip his tongue into her mouth before biting down on her lips hard enough to make them bleed._

_"Pretty pretty," he sneers at her. She opens her eyes and sees the wicked, curved blade before it touches her cheek. There's no pain. Yet. _

_"Think I'll keep this pretty face when I take it off. Think I'll save you for very last." He licks her other cheek from the corner of her lips to her temple and she recoils. Calloused, bruising fingers catch her jaw and squeeze until her eyes water from the pain. "Peel it all off nice and slow. Gonna take my time with you!"_

"Just take your time there, Sazh." The voice is loud now. Each word pounds against her temples like mallets on tom-toms. She winces, wishes everyone would shut up. Wishes she could just die already. "There's no hurry here. She's just bleeding to death is all."

"Would you shut up!" A new voice chimes in, thick with worry, and even more grating. She doesn't know who these yammering people are, but they are making her pain worse. They need to go away. "If you make him screw up, he's got to start all over again."

"Listen kid! I'm about up to here with your lip. You better watch yourself or your gonna get a mouthful of my fist. Unlike the dead man and our martyr here, I don't think you're particularly cute."

"Try it!"

"Hey kid! Do you have a sudden urge to die?" Someone tries to mediate. "Shut it! And you? Keep your hands to yourself or we're gonna have problems! We don't have enough problems right now?"

_Yes, shut them up! And shut up too, while you're at it._ She needs to center herself, get control of the pain. Every time she thinks she's managed to locate it and lock it down and away, some fresh nightmare pops up in a new location. She's sinking too fast to bail at this point. Since she can't abandon ship here, she's going to have to drown. Preferably sooner rather than later.

"Fang!" Someone new squeaks. Perhaps she can drown that person before she goes. Her voice is awful and painful.

"Don't you 'Fang' me! This kid's got no respect, which is bad enough. He's also got no sense of self preservation. He's been spending too much time with this one." Someone gives her a gentle shake that wakes up fresh agonies throughout her body.

"Don't do that!"

"Enough. All of you shut up! I need to concentrate!" This voice is vaguely familiar. She thinks it belongs to the man she asked for help. That worked out well for her. "Alright. I think I've got it."

"Yeah?" The nasty woman sounds hopeful. There's more movement and she wonders what's happening, and why these people won't go away. There's fear devouring her gut, making her tremble.

"Do you want to do the honors?"

"What, you afraid of the big bad, soldier then Sazh?"

"Well...yeah. Do I look stupid or insane?" There's an answering melodious laugh that sounds completely honest. _At least she's not yelling anymore._

"Right then. You hold, I'll pour." Hands lift her and it hurts enough to force her stomach into her throat, which forces the groan that's been trapped behind her vocal chords out into the open.

_"Hold her nose!" She wakes to someone sitting on her chest, someone holding down her hands. _

_"They want her alive for the arena!" She struggles against the hands wrapped around her wrists and gets punched in the eye for her trouble. She sees the stars before the throbbing starts. She gasps and a funnel is slipped into her mouth. The hard end gags her before the liquid starts flowing. She chokes, aspirates some of the foul concoction and feels as if she's drowning as the world starts to fade. "Gotcha now, witch."_

"You got her yet?"

"Uh huh." She feels the rumble of an answer rattle through her back where it rests against the person propping her up.

"Oh, just so you know, I think you got the raw deal here."

"What else is new? Just do it." There's a thick, bitter, just-this-side of too hot liquid filling her mouth and she resists, can't help but panic. Hands hold her still, fingers pinch her nose and she swallows. The liquid hurts and numbs at once. Her head spins. Her mind is slow and leaden. It's no real surprise to her when she gets stuck in quicksand, pulled under and buried

_Alive. They buried her alive! Dirt pours between the cracks of the slipshod coffin. It coats her lips, sifts up her nose with each inhalation and she chokes up phlegm and blood filled mud. Each gasping choke fires bolts of misery through her destroyed body. _

_She can smell the beginnings of infection in her wounds, feels the fever from it raging unchecked through her. The odor mixes with the stench of blood and urine to choke her in the confined space. She can feel the scald on her skin from being forced to wallow in her own filth through the long days of torture. The Strappado is frighteningly effective and brutal in its simplicity. She can't lift her arms to peel away her soaked, stinking clothing. They are purple and swollen, joints separated and shredded under the force created by her own hanging body weight. She doesn't understand why they didn't just kill her. Considering the agony rolling through her in hot waves, she can only figure that it's because death would be too merciful._

Why don't they just put her out of her misery? She's sweating and freezing, teeth and bones chattering. She's boiling alive from the inside out. She tries to struggle out of the bindings holding her; she kicks, gets free for a moment before she's blasted with frigid air.

"Take it easy, Light." Something covers her. "It's going to be alright. I'm going to take care of you." It feels as if she's been trampled after falling from a great height. There are pains shivering through her body that promise to morph into torturous agony if she so much as breathes too deeply. She grunts and lights explode in the darkness behind her eyes. Tears leak from between clenched lids and she wonders if they evaporate when they touch her skin.

Something cold lays across her forehead and she relaxes before she realizes it's a hand and protests. "She's...

_...Burning up! She can feel the heat of the fire as it desiccates her body, peels the flesh from her bones like parchment. Someone once told her that burning wouldn't hurt because with no flesh or nerves to feel, there can be no pain._

_There's a loud pop, a crackle that reminds her of sap exploding in a fire, or fat burning from cooking meat. Her last thought before she gives herself over to magic is that she hopes that liars burn for eternity._

"I believed you, you know." She's soaked and smelly, but closer to coherence than she can ever remember being. She's been hearing this voice for some time now, she realizes. It's been a light in the darkness, a beacon of sanity in the fevered madness. He's been whispering to her and she's followed his voice through her delirium like a trail of bread crumbs. "I believed you would take care of me. You can't do that if you don't come back though."

Something in her aches to reach out, but she's too tired to move. Too exhausted to peel open her eyes and ask the boy his name. Ask why she knows him when she doesn't know herself.

Ask him to save her before she's lost for good.

"Please come back," he begs.

_She doesn't want to go back to that place, but she has to say goodbye. The rain pouring down onto her as she walks is frigid. It seems fitting somehow that the weather should be as miserable as she feels. She cannot believe that this is actually happening, that they are really going to leave her. She comes alone against her sister's wishes. But this is too much horror for so fragile a girl. _

_It's too much horror for her._

_The hallways smell of antiseptic and recycled air. They are bright white and puke green, colors of institutions everywhere, and she cannot figure out why anyone would ever choose these colors for anything-let alone someplace designed specifically to promote healing. They are hideous and uncomfortable. _

Perhaps_, she thinks, _that is the point._ Perhaps no one should allow themselves to get too comfortable in a hospital. Because the worst is always a possibility._

_She pushes open the heavy wood door and steps into the room. There are plastic tents around the beds. They are there to prevent the spread of this mysterious infectious disease killing her parents. She wonders how such flimsy pieces of plastic can accomplish such a monumental task when they cannot even contain the smell of illness. _

"I think the worst part of the whole thing was the smell." The voice is deep and familiar if somewhat subdued.

"When my wife-her name was Amina-did I ever tell you that, Soldier? Not that you would ever ask." He laughs like there's some joke that she doesn't get. Maybe she is the joke. "Anyway, it was the smell. I don't think anyone can really describe it. It's like...like you can smell the dying going on inside." She hears the sadness, the tears. "This is going to sound stupid, but uh...I always thought that it was her soul that was dying a piece at a time. And once the soul is gone, then the body just, you know...it gives up. The body can't live without the soul, right?"

She hears him swallow. There is a pause and the sound of fabric scraping against fabric. Then the voice starts again, little more than breath in her ear. "You listen to me, Miss Soldier. I don't know what's happening here inside you, but you gotta fight it. You may be come off as cold and tough as nails, but you've got more soul than any two people I know. So you see, it can't all be gone yet. You really going to let this thing destroy you?"

_The illness ravages their bodies. Her mother slipped into a coma during the previous evening. The doctors have no hope that she will regain consciousness. She wishes she could hug her, believes that she will open her eyes and wrap her arms around her if she can just...touch her. But she can't. She presses the palm of her hand to the plastic, whispers a soft, "I love you," before walking to the other bed._

_She peeks through the clear plastic of the tent and finds a stranger in place of her father. A withered, hollowed out husk. His eyes crack open and his mouth twists into a horrible parody of his smile. She wants to turn and run, close her eyes and pretend she's never seen him; to go back outside and let herself imagine that her parents are just away somewhere; that her life is the same today as it was last week. If she goes now..._

"You can't...go." She doesn't want to, but staying just hurts so much. "If you do, then I killed you." She wants to open her eyes. She wants to quiet the despair. Something in the lost tone of voice tugs at her, makes her want to fight.

_"Cl-Claire? That you baby?"_

_The tears filling her eyes make her angry. She needs to be strong now. _

_"Hi there. I..." the word is a cough. He clears his throat and starts again, "I didn't think they'd let you come."_

_"They didn't want me to." The doctors told her there was a risk in just going in the room. This disease frightened them. She could see their fear and it disgusted her. These people were supposed to save lives, but she could tell that they just wanted her parents to hurry up and die already. "I..." she steels herself, smacks away the tears, "I made them let me come."_

"You're a tough nut, you know? So you need to stop screwing around and to be strong now." The angry woman doesn't sound so angry anymore. She sounds quiet and weary. "You know I didn't like you at all when I first met you. Thought you were a right bitch." She feels someone tuck the ends of a blanket around her.

"Hell, you are a bitch!" The woman laughs.

_The laugh is wet and awful, but somehow still joyous. "'That's my girl! You need to be strong, Claire. You need to hold onto Serah. She's not strong like you. You can't let them take her away from you. It's up to you to take care of your sister."_

"It's probably why we get on so well. Well that, and our tendency to take care of our own." She hears shifting. "You know, I wouldn't have let many people get away with that little bitch slap you gave me the day we met. If it wasn't for the fact that I agreed that I was somewhat responsible for your sister getting...well screwed, I suppose is close enough; Right. So anyway...if it weren't for that, I would have showed you exactly how unkindly I take to being smacked around." She lets out a barking laugh before the tone shifts to serious. "You gotta snap out of this."

_"Don't worry. I will."_

_"I know it's not fair. I would...I would change it if I could."_

_"Please don't be sad."_

"Please don't do this. I mean, no one else gets my humor, you know? Not even Vanille, god love her. And no one else would have taken that right cross in such stride. I guess I got you back for that little love tap you gave me the first day after all. I never thought of it like that before. That why you didn't hit me back that day? Eh, whatever. And the look on your face when I punched you was priceless. Never a camera around when you need one, is there?"

_"Claire. You go now. Don't come back here. I don't want...this to be..." he gasps and coughs "the image... image you carry for...the rest...of your life. I want you to remember me as your father."_

_"You are my father."_

_"I am your father." It's all the reassurance she will ever have. "Go baby." She shakes her head, sucks back the tears, sits in the lone plastic chair and waits._

"You know when I heard Sazh shouting for help, I half expected to come out and find you'd finally turned into Cie'th. I mean you've been warning me for a while you felt it coming on, right? Either that, or that you dropped dead. It wouldn't have been so far out of bounds. But you don't do anything the easy way, do you?"

_She refuses to leave. She waits while her mother stops breathing and slips away without ever saying goodbye to her. She grows stiff in the chair as her father's breathing becomes labored; until the inside of the plastic tent is smeared with the blood he hacks up. Until the machine's alarms signal the loss of his heartbeat. Until he is dead._

"You do know that the Hero was actually dead when you started that little ritual right? Not almost. Not dying. Gone." The non sequitur throws her off. She can't decipher the meaning of the sentence, but it seems that tension transcends meaning. The rhythm of the woman's voice lulled her until that point. Let her dance between here and there, navigate the ether without map, compass or sexton. But her heart rages now and the stress builds behind her eyes in a swirl of hideous colors. "You pretty much took us all to that edge. I never should have agreed to it. I know you're a crazy bitch after all. I know that you don't take care of yourself at all. And that because of our little deal, taking care of you became my job. Not exactly fair."

_She stops thinking about the unfairness of her parents' death, or the injustice of the doctors giving up without even trying. She forgets about doctors at all, until they stroll into the room and tell her it's over and that she has to leave now. Tell her she will not receive the bodies to bury. Explain about incineration to prevent outbreak: about public health protocols. They hand her some forms to sign to get permission to destroy the bodies._

"You don't have permission to die yet. We had a deal. You don't get to die until I kill you. You hear me?"

_She hears it all and absorbs none of it. She signs the form because she is a child and cannot fight this authority. But she will not forget this travesty either. Oh no. She will never forget. And after today, she will not be a child ever again. She turns and leaves without looking back. She was their baby; she was their Claire. But she's no baby anymore. She must grow up now. If she can't take care of herself, she will lose her only remaining family to the orphanage. _

"So stop laying around and feeling sorry for yourself. Wake the hell up already! Sazh assures me that you are tough."

_She will be tough. Claire was weak. She hurt too easily, cried too much. She wanted to run from her responsibilities. She can't be Claire anymore if she wants to hold together her family. Claire can't take care of herself, let alone her sister._

Something combs through her hair. Fingers. Blunt nails doing a tickling scrape over her forehead, through her bangs, catching smartly in tangles before starting the entire journey over.

"Shouldn't have done it. You shouldn't have. You said you'd take care of yourself. We had a deal."

The voice is unfamiliar and the words nonsensical, but they pull at her. She needs to open her eyes; open her mouth. She needs to remember so she can figure out what he means; figure out why, even in her confusion, she so vehemently disagrees with his statement.

It's like instinct.

_Her gut tells her that something has to change. Her father always taught her to follow her gut. When she'd hesitate he'd yell, 'Put your helmet on and get in the game!'_

_Her father may not have __**always**__ been right, but he's the smartest person she knows. _**Was** the smartest person she knew_, she corrects. He is gone now. All she has left of him is his sage advice, and she plans to live by it. She will put on a 'helmet' (and whatever other armor she can manage) and take whatever hits life throws from now on. She will bury Claire with her parents' ashes and memories. She will become strong, and steady. She will do her parents proud and take care of her too young, too soft, way too gentle sister._

"I never told you that I met Serah." The tone is guilty, the voice soft. "It was on a beach. And just the once. She was really nice to me, and I really liked her. And it just made me feel even worse about the way things turned out. I never wanted to hurt anyone." She's not sure she knows this voice. This is not the nasty woman who is apparently her friend. A friend who thinks punching her in the face is funny and promised to kill her. So maybe not such a good friend really. But a friend, nonetheless. This one sounds sweet and sad; young and old at once.

She wants to surface from this in between before she disappears. She's slipping in and out too often. She is afraid.

"And when I met you, I saw the resemblance immediately. The physical resemblance, I mean. Seeing any other similarities took a bit of time." She giggles. It is annoying.

"But they're there," she assures quickly, like she's afraid she's delivered some offensive blow. Hands fuss at her for a bit, run a wet cloth over her dry lips before settling it on her forehead. "Serah forgave easily." She snorts out a very unladylike snort. It's the most endearing sound she's made yet. "And you...well. You don't." She giggles again. This time she knows that the joke is definitely being made at her expense. She wonders why she's not more upset by this revelation. "But she didn't get to be who she is in a vacuum, you know?"

She really doesn't. But she wants to know.

There's a long pause. "I know you know what happened...back then. I could see it in your eyes back in that library. You said my name and I just...knew. I don't know if you understand why I held so much back, but you kept quiet anyway. That means something, you know. And even if you don't, I do."

She doesn't know what the hell this giggly woman is talking about. Half of her wishes she would just shut up. The other half needs her to keep speaking.

"So I think part of you does. I know you understand what it's like to pack everything away to keep going. I saw some...horrible things. I did everything I could to forget all those horrible things. When I woke up from stasis, I felt like I'd gotten a second chance. I tried to become someone else."

_She will become someone else. She walks out of the hospital, feels the rain soak through her clothes in a detached way. She'll be cold later, she's sure, but right now she can't feel anything at all. There's no pain from her parents' death. No exhaustion from sitting at their death beds and signing their bodies over for immediate incineration. No fear of the uncertain future. No water soaking her clothes. The wind blows her wet hair hard enough to deliver a stinging slap across her face. A transformer explodes next to her and she jumps back, feels the hairs on her body stand at attention. Feels her heart pound. _

_She __**feels**__ and it's terrible and wonderful._

_Someone grabs her and drags her away from the raining sparks. She looks up into the face of a kind, pretty lady in polka dot dress and matching cloche hat. Her hat is ruined, her pretty dress is in tatters, but somehow she is still beautiful. The rain gives her dark skin an ethereal glimmer, adds a twinkle to her eyes. "Are you alright child?_

_She's the first person who has asked her that question. It is an amazing relief even if she has no intention of being truthful. She nods. "I'm fine."_

_"Fine? You almost got your fool self struck by lightning."_

Is that what happened?_ "Lightning, huh? I didn't realize."_

_The pretty woman's features crease with worry. "Are you alright? Do you need help? Did you run away?"_

No. Yes._ "No."_

_"Can I call your parents for you?"_

_"I have no parents. They died." She leaves out that they just died that morning._

_"Oh, I'm so sorry."_

_"Don't be." _

_"I'd hate to think of my baby left all alone." She notices the carriage for the first time as the woman coos something that sounds like 'dodge' at the infant. The lady looks at her again. Her eyes are kind. "What's your name?"_

_"C..." she pauses. Not Claire. Claire is dead. She looks at the sparking transformer, envies the power that could do such damage and makes a decision. "Call me Lightning."_

"In the end...we always come back to ourselves. We have no choice."

* * *

She comes up from slumber like she's rising from the dead. There's pain everywhere, but something tells her that it's duller now. Bearable. She blinks open her eyes and flinches at the brilliance of the firelight. She closes her eyes again, rolls away from the light and tries to remember what the hell happened to her this time.

Laying on the cold, hard ground is painful. She wonders what sort of spectacular bruising she has now to cause such exquisite misery. She grunts as she makes her way to her feet, feels queasy first, then nervous as her peripheral vision narrows to a tunnel. She's going to pass out. She takes a deep breath and cringes before she feels herself grow steadier.

She takes a few steps to clear her head, takes a few breaths to fight the pain. She digs through the jumble in her mind to see what she can remember.

She remembers being chased. She remembers burning. She remembers dying. She remembers killing and killing and killing.

She remembers miles of catwalk; chasing after an angel and a demon. She remembers the rage that filled her and spilled over into the boy who followed her and somehow managed to worm his way under her skin.

She remembers Ifrit, Leviathan, Diablos. She remembers Odin.

She remembers running towards her death for days and days, drawing the boy towards his destruction like some mythological siren. He came apart at the seams in front of her, spilling his tenderness out all over the floor. She stuffed him with venom and vitriol and stitched him up good as new then dragged him behind her again until she finally caught up to that death in a town square. She was surrounded; outmanned and outgunned and moments from that sweet death she'd been hunting because there was no way in hell they would ever take her alive.

She might not be good enough to escape, but she is sure as hell too good for them to take alive. _Oh yes!_

She'd have bloodshed, vengeance, then peace. The memory makes her smile.

She remembers the heat of the explosion, the break in the lines. Remembers the boy yelling, "It's him." Remembers the hope in his voice and eyes. Remembers...something-wait! Hope.

Platinum hair and big, soulful eyes. Lost mother, lost home. Lost innocence. No! That's not right: stolen innocence. She stole it from him sure as death stole his mother.

_/I'll try to watch out for you too./_

She remembers Hope.

She gasps and the floodgates open as her life pours in.

The pain of the memories drives her to her knees. She clutches her head, presses hard against the exploding agony. She chews her lip bloody to hold back the scream.

That day! Snow saved her that day but she didn't want to admit it. Snow, the infuriating jackass, rode in like some sort of knight on a steed to save them from certain death...except his steed was actually two half naked women. She rolls her eyes behind closed lids.

_Why does that not surprise me?_

She remembers wanting to plant her fist in his face. Remembers surrendering to that impulse more than once. Remembers being infuriated every time he winked at her after she hit him. Remembers him needling her, pushing her, challenging her. Remembers his care and concern. She smiles.

She remembers Cerberus.

Remembers Snow's heartbeat slowing, his lifeblood pouring everywhere: pooling under him and splashing over her. Remembers him dying under her hands, though she refused to see it at the time.

She remembers her sister telling her how much she loved him. She remembers Serah crying when Lightning called her pathetic and stupid. The sobs were bitter and gut-wrenching. She closes her eyes to hide from the memory, finds the image clearer against the backdrop of her eyelids. She'd been so very cruel. She stood unmoved and watched her sister weep and stutter out a mixture of explanations and pleas regarding Snow. God help her, some part of her had enjoyed it. She covers her mouth to muffle the sob.

She enjoyed hurting her sister and making her cry because she'd given up her childhood so Serah could have one; she'd given up her chance at a good life to give one to Serah. She had to become a mother at fifteen, when she still needed a mother of her own. Serah got to have a mother! And this was how Serah repaid her sacrifices? She took up with some lay about, jobless, idiotic, do-nothing loser with too much muscle and too little brains? She let him stay in Lightning's house? Let him live off Lightning's wages while he hung around with his little gang of wannabes? Serah cried, and Lightning watched and felt...satisfied.

She'd resented the hell out of her sister and hadn't even realized it. It felt **good** to hurt Serah.

Her parents would be so ashamed of her.

"Oh...god." She feels sick. The truth of her cruelty and the depths of her depravity make her ill. And now she's failed her sister all over again. She's lost him. Perhaps he died knowing that he'd earned Lightning's highest respect and regard. Perhaps he knew that Lightning finally accepted him as her family. But Serah would never know it-would never **believe** it. And now Serah, when she wakes (Lightning cannot consider an alternative) will be left with a cruel, vindictive older sister and the knowledge that she wasn't allowed to say goodbye to her fiancé. She'll probably believe that Lightning let him die on purpose, or-oh god-killed him herself.

Considering the evil in her-evil that's apparently always been in her-maybe she had. Is it really so far-fetched? What better way could there be to hurt her sister than to murder her fiancé?

She spent what felt like an eternity trying to find herself in the chaos in her mind. She wishes now that she'd stayed trapped in her madness.

"Oh...oh please." Her head throbs. Her body shakes. She can't bear this pain. It's worse than any and all of her remembered pain: all the memories of other peoples' lives and deaths combined.

"Should have been me." She's shaking. Her teeth are chattering. "Oh please, I'm sorry Serah." The tears burn her eyes, her face. "You'll never forgive me, but I'm so sorry."

"Sis?"

Her eyes close. She hadn't even realized they were open as she stared into her past. She holds her breath. She's losing her mind again. She needs to hold onto reality before it spins away from her, because she's pretty damn sure that if she loses it now, she'll never get it back.

She'll never want it back.

"Lightning?"

_Please. Please don't._

She hears footsteps and she cringes away. A hand touches her back and she hits her hands and knees and crawls.

Like the rat she is.

"Wait. Wait, please." It's the please that pulls her up short. "Come on, Sis. Don't do this again. Come back now."

"You're dead." She refuses to turn around and admit that she's talking to the empty air. The dead man snorts.

"That's what they keep telling me, yeah." She hears movement, senses the air stir as the ghost circles around her. She keeps her eyes shut. "And considering how I feel half the time, I really can't argue. Fang even started calling me 'Dead Man' instead of 'Hero.'" Imaginary Snow chortles at the horrible joke.

The laugh is perfect. It rattles her entire body like a tuning fork. She wonders if it's the right frequency to shatter her.

"Sis?"

_It is._ There's no doubt about it. She is fracturing under the intensity of this hallucination. "I can't do this."

She needs to get the hell out of here before she disappears down the rabbit hole again.

"I'm not dead Lightning. I have no idea how you did it. Though Sazh said...something. I really wasn't listening because it didn't matter anyway. Not if you didn't wake up. I've never been one for explanations. And I'm not so good at understanding things. You know that."

_Please._ She doesn't even know what she's asking. She tries to slow her breathing to keep from hyperventilating. She can feel the pieces that she's just put back in place getting jumbled again.

"You always say I'm a dumb blond."

She opens her eyes and there he is. He is impossible and somehow he is there. She looks at his fingers wrapped around her bicep, remembers the ruination that was his hand. He can't be real because "Your hand was..."

"Gone?" He holds it up, pulls the glove off and shows her the spider web of scars scattered over the front and back of his once-ruined hand. It looks like someone took a meat tenderizer to it. The scars are raised, angry and red. The joints are swollen. The fingers look like sausages. "Yeah, it pretty much was." He flexes the fingers and winces. "It still hurts like hell. But it's there. And it works. See?"

He holds it out to her and she wraps her fingers around it against her will. She runs her hands along the scars. The bones are not knit perfectly and she can feel knobs of calcifications jutting out. There are knots of scar tissue between the metacarpals and Snow flinches when she presses on one too hard. But she can feel the pulse throb in his thumb and she flips the hand over, runs her fingers over the ruined life line.

His hand is a wreck, much like her.

"Not too pretty but...from what everyone has told me, it's much better."

"It is." She traces the blue veins upwards, runs her fingers around and traces over his brand. She feels an answering tingle in hers and jerks away. She's so not doing that ever again. Ever!

"Are you real?" She asks the hand. "Really? Or am I totally nuts."

His face and eyes soften in a way that just makes her ache. This hallucination is perfect. "I'm real," he promises. "You saved me. Guess you're the hero, after all." She considers his answer before shaking her head.

"Fang was right." Snow's brow creases. Of course it would! He has no idea what Fang said to her back in that library. He was dead then too! She feels the truth hit her like a gut shot. "That really doesn't help at all."

His mouth opens and closes, opens again and he stammers out an "I..." before she bursts out laughing at the confusion on his face, and at the absurdity of asking a figment of her imagination if he is, indeed, a figment.

The worst part of it is that she believes him. It isn't just wishful thinking. She believes it all. She really must have gone mad again. The thought is upsetting, but she splintered into about as many pieces as possible right now. The only option available to her anymore is hysteria. So she embraces it and laughs until she doubles over around a tearing pain in her gut. She sucks in a deep breath...

"Sis?" His voice is distant now, as it should be. He is, after all, dead.

She spends the length of her exhale wishing for death before she once again sinks into blissful unconsciousness.

* * *

_The sunset paints the entire landscape blood red. She walks, grass crunching underfoot as she passes, and thinks this is the most vivid dream she's ever had. She has no idea where she is, or how she's gotten here. The world feels unfamiliar to her. Her body feels unfamiliar. She looks down at herself and recoils. _

_What sort of depraved maniac would dress her in such shameful attire? Where is her dress? Why can't she remember? Her body hurts. Her arm feels heavy and sore. She looks at it, sees the hideous scar bisecting the flesh of her forearm and screams. What have they done to her?_

_She hears growling behind her and freezes. Her heart seizes with terror. She casts a glance over her shoulder, sees the glint of fading light reflect in the monster's eyes and off its wicked looking teeth. She recognizes this creature from her schooling: a Gorgonopsid. This monster is capable of shredding her to pieces. Every part of her screams to flee, but there's something niggling away at her that warns that running will bring only a swift, painful death. _

_She turns and faces the monster. It stoops its head and steps forward. She holds her ground as terror pounds through her. She's going to die here, in the middle of nowhere._

_The animal springs at her and something whispers to drop and roll. Her body moves before her mind engages, like she's been dodging monsters her whole life. The skin of her chest feels like someone is branding her with a hot iron. She feels something stir through her, ripple beneath her skin. It explodes out of her as fire and thunder and ice. She hears a gurgle and thud, smells the remnants of ozone, smoke and burning hair. _

_She turns and sees the attacking animal dead at her feet. She stares at it, fascinated. Something twists inside her, drives her to her knees beside the carcass. She looks to the heavens for help, sees the glimmering Cocoon above her and feels a rolling, bright rage wash over and roll through her like nothing she's ever known._

_/Destroy slaughter rend kill bleed bite tear shatter ruin annihilate Immolate obliterate exterminate/_

_/Monster. Monster. Monster./_

_She needs to destroy. Her target is out of reach. She eyes the carcass and decides it will be an inadequate surrogate._

_She dips her finger into the blood, slips the digit between her lips. _

_She will make do._

* * *

She jerks awake this time, her heartbeat an erratic and painful throbbing in her temples, and moans out a loud "ow."

"So the hero wasn't lying or crazy after all." Her head hurts so badly she can't even touch it. "You know, I was afraid that he'd finally lost it when he said you woke up, walked and talked and everything."

"Please..." she moans. She breathes through her nose to calm the swirling nausea.

"Please what Soldier?"

"Please shut up, Sazh. My head is killing me." She puts her hands to her temples and presses. Sparks fire in the darkness behind her eyes. She feels a cool cloth drape across her eyes. It offers a modicum of relief but she still thinks beheading would be better. Sazh's hands wrap around hers and draw them away from her head in order to wrap her curled fingers around a warm mug.

"Drink that," Sazh orders, voice low pitched in deference to her pain. "And before you ask or throw it, it absolutely is drugged. But it shouldn't be enough to put you out. Just enough to numb you a bit."

Her entire body throbs and aches. Her head is exploding like a rotten pumpkin. She has no idea if any of this is actually happening. Numb sounds awesome right now.

She pulls the wet cloth off her forehead and struggles to sit up. Sazh plucks the mug from her hands, pulls her up by her left arm and helps to lean her against a rock. There's a dull throb in her right shoulder that speaks of yet another injury. She tries to remember it and can't. She decides she really doesn't care anyway. She places the washcloth on the back of her neck. Cold water drips down her back, slips along the length of her spine like icy fingers. She shivers as Sazh returns the mug. She cradles it in her hands and soaks up the warmth like a lizard on a rock.

"How long?" Sazh doesn't even pretend not to understand her.

"Two days." _Not so bad. _As if he hears her thoughts he continues, "A very long two days."

_No arguments._ It felt more like two years of torment. She drifts back into memories, shakes her head in what proves an idiotic and agonizing maneuver. She looks around at the camp. Fang and Vanille are sleeping near one another. Part of her remembers that there had been some tension between them before everything went to hell. She hopes that whatever caused it has been resolved rather than back-burnered. One thing this experience taught her is that there is never enough time, and spending what you have angry and fighting is the worst sort of waste. She glances past them, catches sight of Hope curled into a ball on the far side of the camp and feels a warm relief fill a place in her she didn't even know was empty. At least he's okay. He looks warm and contented, if pale, curled beneath the blanket. She's so relieved that it takes a moment for her brain to register the full picture.

Hope's head is resting on Snow's knee.

She gasps.

Snow is alive. She wasn't hallucinating. Or she still is. Either way, it doesn't matter right now.

She feels dizzy as she stares at them. Snow is sleeping sitting up, leaning against a tree. His chin rests on his chest. The fingers of Snow's right hand are buried in Hope's hair.

"The Hero fell asleep on watch. Again. He's not ready for taking watches but he doesn't listen to anyone. We've been trying to wake you up to get you to kick his ass for us. You're the only one he'll even pretend to listen to."

That's absurd. Snow never listens to her. Ever.

"We talked about it and decided that it's just easier to let him have his way. You know-like a two year old. So, we let him think he's sitting watch, and one of us sits up and watches him sit watch until he falls asleep. Humoring him keeps him from climbing the cliff faces or whatever the hell he else he wants to do. He's acting like he's perfectly fine, but...that just isn't the case."

She swallows down her worry. He's alive. That's more than she has any right to expect.

"And then of course there's the kid. He can't bear to be more than a few feet from the Hero. Or you. But tonight it's him. I'd guess it's because he was so upset earlier when you woke up. Of course, we didn't believe him. We thought he'd finally lost it."

She nods, even though she really doesn't understand. It seems like the thing to do.

Something about Sazh's speech catches her attention. Cliff faces?

She's sitting on the ground. Snow is leaning against a tree. There is a campfire.

They are outside.

After a lifetime underground, she is finally outside and she didn't. Even. Notice!

"Where are we?" And how did they get here? Sazh looks around like he's checking his bearings.

"I don't know. Ask Fang when she wakes up. We're in some valley or something. You gonna drink that while it's hot?" Lightning curls her lip up as she stares at the murky drink. "Are you joking? So, you'll face down a three headed demon dog by yourself, channel magical powers beyond our wildest dreams, but you won't drink a cup of tea? Really?

She sighs. Well, when he puts it **that way**, what choice has she got? She puts the rim of the cup against her lips and says, "Did you really have to say it like that?"

Sazh laughs at her. "Yeah." He nods, pulls a piece of dried meat from his pack, sniffs it, scowls and takes a nibble. "Yeah I really think I kinda did," he says around a bite of food.

She nods again. Complex thoughts are far too much for her tapioca brain right now. So she just sips the tea and finds herself pleasantly surprised. It's not bad, actually. Either this is a different recipe than Vanille uses, or Sazh is just a better cook. It really doesn't matter. "So," she says offhandedly. "what happened?"

Sazh looks at the strip of meat in his hand with distaste. "Damn." He heaves a put-upon sigh. "I really hoped you wouldn't ask that question. Why do I always draw the short straw?"

She raises an eyebrow at him.

"Alright, don't get all uppity with me," he quips and she smirks. She can feel the drugs in the tea starting to kick in. The pain fades back into a hinting suggestion of its true self. Her tongue feels thick and her mouth is dry despite the drink she still sips. She stares into the dark abyss of the cup. _So, this is the really good stuff then._

"Soldier?" The word interrupts her staring contest with the tea. She looks up at Sazh, sees the frown line across his brow and smiles at him. His face softens and he says, "Ah. So it's like that then is it?"

She giggles at him even though she doesn't get the joke. She sips the drink again, finds that it tastes great now. "What's in this?"

He beams at her. "Elixir."

"It's great!" Her words blur together. She looks back at him and finds that his features blur together too.

"Yeah, I'll bet it is." He plucks the cup from the cradle of her hands and she scowls at him. "Don't give me that look. You're already pie-eyed and you've only had half." He sticks a flask into her hands. "Drink some water."

She obliges him, but only because she has cotton mouth. Any minute her tongue might merge with the roof of her mouth permanently. She sips and says, "Well? Are you going to tell me, or do I have to ask again?"

Sazh blows out a breath. "I'm guessing you remember the hero getting himself nice and mangled." She can still smell the blood and hear the whimpers. She swallows and nods. "Well after that you went a little loony and attacked Cerberus. Of course you can't really kill it, what with it being an Eidolon and everything. But that didn't stop you from giving it the old college try."

She has no real memory of attacking the monster, but it certainly sounds like something she would do. She's not sure what to say.

"I'm not sure how you survived it, to be honest. I was a little busy trying to hold the hero's guts inside his body." His eyes glaze over. He shakes off the memory. "Turns out the last temple priest was a l'Cie, and Cerberus was his Eidolon."

Really? That seems like an awful lot of intel gathering for such a screwed situation. "How do you know that?"

"There's a story on the walls in the temple. Like the ones in the library. I have a slight advantage of being able to read that dead language." He sounds smug, but looks bitter. It's odd.

"Only this one was about Gabriel, the last priest of the temple. The carvings warn not to desecrate the temple, or try to steal. They swear that Cerberus would defend the temple as that was its master's final order."

"We didn't desecrate anything," she denies, then remembers the broken doors and decides that, yep, they really sort of, kind of did. And there goes her righteous indignation! "Oh. Never mind."

"Yeah 'oh!' We blew two sets of doors to hell, but oddly enough, that wasn't what summoned the Eidolon."

And he's lost her again, which is really no great surprise considering the fog swirling around in her brain. "Huh?"

"Yeah. You're gonna love this one. I know it I did!" He pauses, takes another bite. "It was the blood that woke it up." She racks her brain but doesn't remember any blood. Sazh continues,"You know, Snow's blood? From his nose bleed."

"So, Snow had a nose bleed and Cerberus tried to rip him apart." _In what world did that make sense? _She looks around. _Apparently, Gran Pulse. _She thinks she might hate this world after all.

"Uh, not quite." Her head hurts too much for this. She's not sure what happened, but she thinks she remembers something about her brain bleeding. Sazh needs to hurry this along. "Snow had a nose bleed all over you," he points at her, "and Cerberus tried to rip you apart. For wearing the blood of a comrade."

You know what the worst part about this revelation is? It doesn't even surprise her. At all. _The world hates us. _"That's..."

"Ridiculous?" Sazh finishes. "Yeah, we've already waxed all sorts of poetical about just how shitty our luck is."

She's certain they did since they got stuck dealing with two dying comrades over what amounted to a misunderstanding! This is never going to not piss her off. Ever!

"So Cerberus?"

"It's probably still in there waiting and guarding."

"What? For someone to come in and stub their toe?"

Sazh laughs. It's pretty bitter. "Whatever. But the good news is..." she raises an eyebrow at him and he shrugs and continues, "the GOOD news is that you did manage to...disable it, I guess. It disappeared to go wherever they go to recharge their batteries or whatever. So you saved the day again."

"Yeah." _Right after I almost got everyone killed, I saved the day! Go me!_ "I'm a real hero." She can't work any inflection into her tone at all.

"Please, anything but that! One hero is more than enough for this group." Sazh punctuates his statement with a deep swallow of something that is definitely not water. "I think we've had about all the heroics we can stand."

She laughs, says "fair enough." Her headache nudges at her, reminds her that she's still quite damaged. She rubs her brow. "Can I have that tea back now?"

"Huh?" Sazh looks confused until she points at the mug next to him. "Oh sure. Sorry."

She sips the drink. It's lukewarm now, and she tastes all the more bitter for the tepid temperature. "And after that?"

He blows out a hard sigh. "I don't know what you did, but uh...I've been reading this book." He gestures to the book from her dreams.

_Ragnarok._

**The** book. In all the insanity, she forgot about the book. "And? Anything useful?"

"Yeah, it's...a hell of a read." She waits him out and he doesn't disappoint. "But it's very dense. I haven't gotten through it all, but what I have read...well, it's a lot." She knows a stall tactic when she sees one. "It's a lot and you're all banged up so I'll give you the short-short version. It seems like every so often a l'Cie has the pleasure of being...imbued, I guess is the translation, with some shiny powers, so that he or she can invoke Ragnarok."

"And that's me." It's not a surprise. It doesn't even really bother her anymore.

"Well, look who's full of herself!" Sazh jokes and Lightning feels confused again. He smiles at her. "It's potentially you. Anyway, that doesn't matter. The reason we were able to pull off something no one should be able to pull off is precisely because that bastard fal'Cie decided we needed Ragnarok to destroy Cocoon."

"So because our focus was to become Ragnarok, we were all given some extra power?" She considers what he's saying and, even through her opiate fog, sees the irony. "Why does this feel like we're going to end up owing Anima our lives?"

"Let's not get carried away. Let's not forget that damn fal'Cie is the reason we're here in the first place." That's true. She doesn't really feel any better though. Go figure. "And that's just the short version. There's a lot more in here." She feels the drug working its way through her again, decides that the rest of the story can wait. She'd rather not think about the events that happened after the healing. She's still trying to wend her way out of the nightmare. She watches Sazh as he sinks into thought again. He's chasing his own demons now as he takes an absent bite of his jerky.

"So, Amina, huh?" Sazh almost chokes on his food and Lightning smiles into her cup, sips at the cooling tea to hide her humor. He looks at her with something akin to shock.

"You heard that, huh?" You'd think he'd know better than to underestimate her.

"I heard a lot," she confirms. Most of it was jumbled and nonsensical. Some wasn't. "There was a constant litany of words that sort of kept me grounded. And annoyed the crap out of me." Sazh laughs, as she hoped he would. "No really, those voices helped me figure out what was real and what wasn't. You all helped me find my way back."

"Well, that's..."

"You were right," she interrupts him. She doesn't want him to stammer or blush. And she doesn't want this to turn into some sap-fest. "I never would have asked."

Sazh's face twists up with wry humor. He nods, takes another bite of his food. "I know it. I'd like to think we all know each other pretty well by now."

Not that well.

She really is a terrible person. She's been travelling with this man for months. They've spent every moment of every day together. They've saved each other's lives repeatedly and she's never once asked him about his family. It never even occurred to her. She pretends that she didn't ask about his son for fear of making him uncomfortable and dredging up his grief. The truth is much uglier. It was never about his feelings, but her inability to deal with them. She never asked about his wife because she doesn't like to remember the dead. She has plenty of her own dead, and she refuses to think of them. This experience taught her the benefits of memory and knowledge. She can't help but be curious now about Sazh's life.

"So, what was she like?" If the question surprises him, he doesn't show it.

"She was wonderful. A kind and generous soul. But willful!" He chuckles. His eyes glaze over as he meanders into his memories. Then his face lights up, his eyes turn mischievous and he says, "And she would have hated you!"

She takes the sting in stride. She knows she deserves it. "So, she was a smart lady then."

"The smartest." Sazh laughs and says, "No you know what? I think she would have liked you a lot."

She finishes her drink, scowls at the dregs of cold sludge at the bottom of her cup, but feels the warmth of intoxication creeping back in. "Now you're just making fun."

"Nah. Now I'm being serious." She can see that he means it, and it makes her uncomfortable. "It would have taken some time, for sure. You come off pretty abrasive. "

_Abrasive? _Biggest. Understatement. Ever! He's such a gentleman.

"I mean, you would have had to grow on her," he finishes.

"As per usual," Lightning quips, trying to escape back into humor. Sazh gives a rough chuckle but refuses to be dissuaded from his sentimental trail.

"That's the truth." He grows serious. "But, yeah. She would have liked you a hell of a lot."

Lightning isn't sure why the statement hurts. Maybe it's the total open sincerity in Sazh's eyes and words. Maybe it's the fact that, until this whole nightmare began and she met these five people, no one has liked Lightning. Ever. Not really. Maybe Serah, but she thinks that's more obligatory love than actual like. You can't choose your family, after all. She imagines that if Serah could choose her family, she'd choose someone more like Vanille for a sister. She's not feeling sorry for herself here. She knows she's earned ass-loads of respect; she knows her men trust her with their lives, and that means a hell of a lot to her. It was always enough.

But no one likes her; not even her.

She looks around the camp and amends the thought. No one liked her until now. Because these people have seen her at her very worst. But she remembers their words-the conversations they'd had with her dying body and disappearing mind-and realizes that they all actually like her. Warts and all.

"You alright there Soldier?"

She clears her throat, tries to hide it in a hummed "Hmm?" She sniffs once and plasters on a smile. "I'm fine." She can feel the tears as a building pressure in her nose. She refuses to cry like some blubbering...girl. "Just tired."

She knows that Sazh knows she's lying. He's too kind to blow up her spot though. If she were being honest here, she'd say Sazh is the first person she's really liked at all in better than six years now. He is easy to like, where the rest of their little group took some acclimating. It's nice to see that, if nothing else, she has decent instincts about people. He's by far one of the best people she's ever met.

"You know, I think your wife was a real lucky lady." Sazh gives her a toothy smile that is completely incongruous with the genuine compliment she just paid him.

"You know what I think, Soldier?" Sazh asks, reaching over and plucking the empty cup from her hands. "I think that you, my friend, are a very happy drunk."

She scoffs. "What are talking about?"

"I can just see it." He stands up and stretches. "You, sitting in some bar all scowling and broody and unapproachable. Throwing death glares around." He attempts a parody of her glare, and ends up looking more like a cross eyed insect. She smiles.

"That is, until you have your first drink. Then the scowl melts away, you're hopping up on tables."

"Not a chance..." He talks right over her.

"Then you're all, 'I love you guys!'" He slurs the words and throws his arms out wide for effect before wrapping her into sloppy bear hug.

"Ass!" She laughs and shoves him away. He puts his hand over his heart and feigns a wounded look.

"I take it back then! You're a right bitch, as Fang would say." He winks at her.

She laughs once as Sazh drapes a blanket around her shoulders. "You know what, Soldier?"

"Hmm?"

"I think I'm getting tired of watching you almost die." He pats her shoulder. "You better start taking better care of yourself. Because frankly..." he pauses and waits for her to look into his eyes. She does and he says. "I can't stand the Hero!" Her jaw drops. His face is dead serious. If it weren't for the twinkle in his eye, she'd never catch the joke. "No, seriously. He's a nightmare when you're hurt. It's all this 'I'm such a failure' nonsense! And 'woe is me.' " She feels the laughter bubbling up. "'I'm a dumb blond!' I can't take it. And next time, I'm just warning you..." he wraps his fingers around her neck, leans close and says, "I'm going to shoot him."

She can't help it. She laughs.

"And believe me when I tell you that I'd only do it to protect him from Fang. That woman was talking about beating him to death if he didn't shut up. I think there was a plot going on."

"Vanille would never hurt Snow. She wouldn't hurt a fly!" Lightning slurs around her clumsy, drugged tongue.

"Oh no! Not Vanille."

"Don't even try and tell me Hope was in on it! I'll never believe you then." She blatantly ignores that Hope tried to kill Snow back in Palumpolum.

"Nah! The hero's grown on the kid like some sort of fungus."

"So, who's the co-conspirator?"

Sazh puts a finger over his lips, points at his hair and whispers, "The chocobo."

She can't help it. She melts into girlish giggles. "I'm telling you! It's true. It's a good thing you woke up."

She giggles away, rests her head on Sazh's shoulder as he continues to tell her about how he had to thwart the murderous plot that Fang and his Chocobo chick hatched.

She slips back to sleep with a smile on her face, for once not worried about what dreams may come.

* * *

TBC... in 2011!

Notes: First-Yes, the subtitle 'Conversations with Dead People' **IS** a nod to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. While season 7 in general...well, sucked to be honest, I liked that episode and I loved the show in general. And the title just felt fitting for this chapter.

Next: I know that Episode Zero (Still haven't read it) had the story of Lightning's parents in it and I apologize to anyone who holds that canon as gospel. You're going to have to get over canon a bit for this one since this is an AU. I will promise you that I don't bend or discard canon unless it serves a purpose in the framework of the story. Sounds odd considering I've basically retold in-game events, but I try to do it while respecting the original story. I consider this story an expansion on a rated T game.

And finally, I searched high and low to see if Sazh's wife had a name-I couldn't find one. That bothers me a lot. It always feels like laziness on the part of the creators. If you're going to go to the trouble of giving the man a dead wife, is it really too much to give said dead wife a name? If there is a name out there under some unturned stone, I apologize for taking the liberty of naming her. But I tried to pick a nice one for her, and keep with some Final Fantasy traditions.

**Amina is a name with African, Arabic and Swahili origins. The African origins say it means Peaceful, Secure. The Arabic and Swahili meanings are both Truthful and Trustworthy. Plus, it is an anagram of Anima-the fal'Cie responsible for setting our little heroes on this terrible and wonderful path. So I hope you like my choice for her. I decided that a man like Sazh deserved a wonderful woman. (I would say he's my very favorite *grins* but I really do love them all.) I hope that's pretty clear by now.

I will once again take this opportunity to assure you that there is NO romance in this story. If anything, this is a story of the bonds of family and friendship. And if I had to tell you that in order for you to know it, I should stop writing right now because I've just wasted 9 months of my life writing nearly 400 pages!

This is it for the year. I'm tapped out. I tried to end the year with a feel good moment for you all (and me too.) Enjoy whichever holiday you celebrate. Have a Safe and Happy New Year! Try to stay warm (and for anyone in the Southern Hemisphere-stay cool). It's frigging cold here! My Aunt told me that it was 23 degrees F in ORLANDO Florida this week. That's ridiculous!

Questions, concerns?

Last Note: Anyone looking for a good deed? Adopt a US Troop and show our soldiers that we appreciate them! You can find information on the Soldier Support Project dot Org backslash Adopt_a_Troop.


	26. Fear and Trembling

A/N Special thanks to Denebtenoh, who drew some fantastic fan art inspired by this story. For anyone who has not visited my profile page, the links are there. Go. Look. Praise her for her greatness! This chapter is for you deneb, for encouraging me!  
No warnings for this chapter. Thanks to those who've read and reviewed and who have stuck with me through the past 10 months!

* * *

"A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature."  
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

-Fear and Trembling-

_Waking is a slow process. It feels like birth somehow-painful, wrenching and violent. A shock to her entire system, but somehow miraculous as well. She blinks open her eyes, slams them shut at the spike of hot, bright agony that pierces her eyes. Her stomach churns around what feels like an ocean of swirling acid. Said ocean creeps upwards towards her throat and she chokes back the horror that is threatening to spew out of her._

_She lies there and waits for things to settle. She counts out heartbeats until she feels steadier and tries again._

_Her body is heavy and cumbersome, its movements jerky and stilted. It feels like it doesn't really belong to her anymore; like she's wearing some sort of weighted costume. All her grace is gone and her limbs flop like beached fish when she tries to move them. The muscles feel like snapped rubber bands. She breathes deep, chokes on the stench of smoke, death, decay and darker things still. Something inside her twists and whispers to her._

Evil.

_She smells great evil in and around her. The odor slices through her other senses until there's a hot anxiety within her melting away the lingering lethargy and confusion. _

_She opens her eyes._

_The world is gone. _

_She looks around, sees rubble and ash and ruination everywhere. She opens her mouth in a soundless scream._

_"You have done well." She turns, sees an old man in white robes surveying the destruction with a curious smile on his face. _

_Well? Her? She looks back at the damage, feels the burn of acid explode into her mouth with eruptive force; enough force to double her over while she retches and gags and spits all manner of horror onto the already soiled ground. The man makes a disgusted sound and steps around her to peer down his hooked nose._

_"Why she ever made humans is a mystery I will never solve," he snipes. "Why she gave you such...power." _

_She doesn't understand. What power? She's kneeling in the dirt at the feet of some shriveled old man. How could she possibly get less powerful? "Who are you?" she asks in a voice not her own. "Why did you do this?"_

_The old man gives her the most alarming grin she's ever seen. It is cold and ugly. His mouth is full of bloody, pointed teeth. He laughs at her._

_"Me? My dear. I didn't do any of this. My hands are clean." He holds up his spotless hands to illustrate the point. They look white as flower petals and soft as baby skin. Manicured and groomed in a manner common only to the gentry. He surveys the destruction again, radiating pleasure with the same intensity the sun radiates heat and light. He turns a gimlet eye on her and flashes a smile with far too many teeth. "You did it, as you always have. As you were always meant to."_

_She shakes her head. "I'd never..."_

_"Never what?" The old man's voice is thunder in her ears. If she weren't already on her knees, she would bow down like a supplicant before him; she would stoop and scrape in the face of his terrible self. "Never kill? Never torture? Never rend and rip and bite. Don't make me laugh. You humans" he draws the word out, says it as if it has four syllables instead of two, "kill one another so prettily. It hardly takes any convincing at all, and you're lining up to cast stones, and torches. To start carving. All it takes is a whisper to turn neighbors into enemies. All it takes is a nudge to turn a lady into a monster."_

_He touches the naked flesh below her clavicle and she gasps at the flare of pain and pleasure that floods her. His lips twist into a sick parody of a smile as he says, "Well, and a brand and focus, of course." He stands again. "And then like any other recipe, you just have to turn up the heat." He spreads his hands wide throws his head back and laughs; it is an earsplitting, spine tingling, insanity inducing thing to hear. She covers her ears and weeps._

_"Don't weep you pathetic wretch. You should be honored to be the instrument of deliverance and destruction; to be the vessel for such great power. You have done your master proud with your...ruthless efficiency and..." he glances around again as if surveying a lovely garden instead of the scene of a massacre, "an artful splendor that I would have thought beyond your pathetic race."_

_"Now, she'll come to us and deliver us from this gutter into which we've been cast and raise us from Perdition." He grabs her chin and wrenches her head up to look into his swirling eyes. "It is all thanks to you, Ragnarok."_

* * *

"Well isn't this cozy?" The voice startles her awake, sparks her flight instinct and makes her whole body jump and try to get vertical to defend itself. Unfortunately for her, she's still weaker than a newborn and dizzy as hell. She ends up spinning like a top. Strong, bony hands grasp at her arms to steady her. "Woah. Sorry about that. I wasn't expecting your reflexes to be back in order. I should have known better! Nice to see you back in the land of the living."

Living is a matter of opinion. If it weren't for the pain and disorientation, Lightning would be pretty certain that she crossed into the land of the dead three times by now. "You alright then?" Fang asks. Lightning considers the question.

Her head feels like someone buried an axe in it. Her guts feel like they've been put through a food processor. Her muscles are wobbling like overcooked pasta. Her joints all feel like someone poured ground glass into them and her thoughts are disjointed and nonsensical. To top it all off, she's still not sure if anything is real.

"I'm fine," she answers. Fang sighs and shakes her head and gives her a sardonic smirk.

"Well, if you're lying about it, you must be better. I'm pretty sure you begged me to kill you a few times the last couple of days." Lightning doesn't remember it, but she sure as hell doesn't doubt it either. Fang presses something into her uncoordinated hands. "I held onto this for you while you were...doing your thing these past few days." The Edged Carbine feels awkward for a moment before Lightning rights her grip on it. Then it's more familiar than breathing to her. "Figured you might want it back."

"Yeah," Lightning murmurs and Fang rests her hand on Lightning's injured shoulder. The pain is vague and disconcerting-a mere shadow of the agony. Lightning can't take her eyes off the weapon. It's been cleaned and oiled; the blade sparkles brighter than the stars in the sky. Fang did a lot more than just 'hold onto' her weapon. Her fingers dance over the moving parts; she watched the blade retract, extend and retract again, smooth and silent. She checks the gun, opens the chamber, checks the ammo and snaps everything closed again. She slides the weapon into its holster, looks up at her strange friend and says, "Thanks."

"No worries," Fang says, squeezes her shoulder once and turns away.

"Light?" Lightning sighs and smiles at the sound of Hope's voice. She turns around to face him and sees Hope barreling towards her. She hears Vanille shriek something out but she's too busy bracing herself for what's sure to be a painful impact to pay attention. She grits her teeth and prepares herself, but Snow snatches Hope around the waist before he connects.

"Easy there, kid," Snow whispers, looking pretty ragged himself for all his bluster. He's ghost pale and a bit waxy looking when he sets Hope back on his feet. Hope, on the other hand, is a healthy shade of humiliated. "Her ribs were busted and she's still weak. Go easy on her." Snow releases Hope and claps him on his back. Hope gives Snow a dirty look before closing the distance at a glacial pace. He stops a few inches from her and takes her hand. She lets him thread his fingers through hers, and meets his eyes when he finally looks into hers.

"You came back," he whispers. The words break her apart as surely as a white squall does a sailboat. She feels something in her chest wrench with enough force to flood her eyes. She pulls him to her with her free hand and he melts against her. She exhales as many of her hopes and worries as she can and just holds the boy and lets him hold onto her. She can feel the fear and tension through the stiff frame of his body. She pats his hair with one hand, rests her face against it.

"I'll always come for you," she promises him and she so hopes she can keep it. She feels him sigh against her neck. She looks up over his head at Snow. He's ragged and exhausted looking, but there's a small smile in his eyes and on his lips. She smiles at him and reaches for him with the hand combing through Hope's hair. She catches the lapel of his coat and pulls until he's got his arms around both of them.

She came back for both of them. For all of them. They are her family.

"Group hug!" Fang yells and plasters herself to Lightning's back, catches Vanille around her neck and brings her into the pile on. Lightning chuckle-gasps out a relieved breath at the eased tension, feels Hope's giggle vibrate through his body where he's pressed against her. Snow huffs a laugh that stirs her hair. Fang's voice in her ear is loud as she yells, "Come on, Sazh. Don't you want to get in on this action over here!"

"I'll pass, thanks."

"You're not getting off that easily, funny man! Get your ass over here and hug the lady. She deserves it after all."

"You're a ginormous pain in my ass, woman," Sazh says as he approaches and puts a soothing hand on Lightning's bad shoulder.

"And you're my very favorite Sazh!"

The familiarity of their small, desperate family offers Lightning something precious and unexpected: it offers her a measure of peace.

* * *

Peace never lasts long, especially on a death march. Lightning doesn't feel anywhere near up to moving on, but she yearns for some semblance of normality again. She looks around at their broken, bloodied little group and reassesses.

Alright, perhaps normal is asking too much. She'll accept routine; and routine means moving on. The walk through the woods should be a picnic after her recent stroll through hell, but Lightning hurts in places that she didn't even know she had.

"You alright, Light?" Hope asks for what must be the seventieth time in two hours. She snatches her irritation by the scruff of the neck and chokes it into unconsciousness. She knows that as hard as the past few days have been on her, they've been worse for Hope. He had to watch Snow die, and Lightning go mad. And possibly die too; and then watch Snow go sort of mad. She's not clear on the specifics, but Sazh was pretty adamant about insanity and death occurring in abundance over the past few days.

"I'm just tired, Hope." She glances over at the boy and sees his mouth in a large 'O' of shock. She starts scanning for potential threats, upset that she's so off her game that she didn't notice approaching predators. "What's wrong?"

"HEY!" He yells, startling her. "We need to rest."

_They need to__** what**__? _She whips her head back and forth and watches as everyone stops moving and stares at her. She can hear Snow's heavy footsteps approaching from behind and she is just too stunned to say anything.

_And __**this**__ is why I'm never honest about how I feel._

"I'm fine," she protests. Hope shakes his head and Lightning cuts off whatever he's about to say with a louder, "I'm fine. Really."

"What's wrong, kid?" Snow asks. She wants to smack him. She wants to smack herself in the forehead for being too much of a dumbass to not realize that this might happen. Hard! "Sis?"

"I'm fine." _Broken record much?_ This whole hovering routine is getting really old, really fast.

"She's tired," Hope proclaims with as much force as he might say 'she's turning inside out.' Somehow tired has become some sort of mortal sin since she was last conscious. She heaves a sigh and waits for Snow to start blustering about rest and taking care of herself and blah blah blah-stuff that makes no difference and she already knows. She gets ready to explain for the ten thousandth time that there's no TIME to wait until she's better. They need to keep moving. Time is running out for them, and for all humanity. Snow looks her up and down, tilts his head then winks at her. Her jaw drops.

_Jerk._

"Come on, Kid." Snow snags Hope by his arm. He tugs gently but Hope plants his feet and resists. Snow tries to coax him with words instead of gestures. "Vanille will take a look at her and you come walk with me."

Alright, this is going to sound about a million shades of wrong right now, but Lightning wants to kiss Snow full on his stupid, smirking mouth. She settles on exhaling a relieved sigh.

Hope's mouth opens and closes, he shakes his head and stammers out a "But..."

"What? Now that Light's awake I'm chopped liver? Where's the love?" Lightning looks away to hide the smirk. Now that Fang has pointed out Snow's ability to irritate people out of their depression, Lightning can't help but be amused by it.

"Shut up!" Hope snaps and storms off, flustered and frustrated. Snow keeps one eye on Hope, makes sure he doesn't wander out of sight.

She looks at Snow for a moment. She's known for a while now that he is protective to his core, but she hadn't really acknowledged that the 'hero' thing is more than just an image to him. It is every fiber of his being. She smiles, feels a fond exasperation for this big blond jerk that she can't explain.

"You shouldn't tease him," Vanille scolds right into Lightning's ear, jerking her from her musings. Her proximity startles Lightning, makes her heart speed up uncomfortably. Vanille notices and scowls at her, but continues talking to Snow. "The last few days were hard on him."

"I know it," Snow retorts, more serious than Lightning would expect. The fact is telling. "The kid's tough and he'll be fine. But I figure Sis over here could do without him hovering right now."

"Lightning needs someone looking out for her." Vanille's got her fingers over the pulse point in Lightning's wrist. She frowns as Lightning knew she would.

"I've got her back," Snow insists with a raised brow. "So does the kid." He catches Vanille's unhappy look and dredges up one of his own. "Something wrong?"

_That's enough_. She needs to take some sort of control of her life again now. She's tired of this crippling weakness. She's tired of people making decisions for her. It's not that she doesn't appreciate their concern, but they're all starting to smother her with it. When did this happen? She's too private a person to tolerate this sort of intrusion any longer. She pulls away from Vanille with more force than necessary, but not more than she intended. Vanille and Snow both look a bit surprised by the outburst.

Excellent. She has their attention now.

"That's enough. It's enough hovering and monitoring and broadcasting of every little problem I have." Snow's eyebrows fly up towards his hairline at her use of the word 'little.' She doesn't care. She's not going to argue semantics with him right now. Little problems, huge problems-whatever! The point stands. She's not stripping him down and examining his scars. She's not commanding him to lay around and gather his strength again. She's not pressing and poking at every sore spot on every companion and wringing her hands about it. "I'm fine."

Snow opens his mouth to argue, as usual. She's surprised when Fang cuts him off. "And there you are! It's about time!" The statement confuses everyone enough to derail the entire argument. They all turn to look at Fang.

"I've been wondering how long it was gonna take for you to snap out of it. I was starting to lose hope. Figured you were lost for good." Lightning feels the smile starting as she stares into Fang's eyes.

It's nice to know someone appreciates her ornery belligerence.

"What the hell are you talking about? She only just regained consciousness this morning." Snow is so frazzled. Lightning will forgive him for missing Fang's point.

"And?" Fang replies. "What's your point? This is who she is. She's a private, secretive, nasty bitch." Snow puffs up like he's going to argue, but Lightning interrupts him by snorting a laugh. Can't argue the truth, right? "Deal with it hero, but do it at a distance and give the lady her space."

Fang grabs Lightning at her bicep and yanks on her right arm. The injured joint screams at her but she hides the wince.

"Hey!" Not well enough it seems. "Knock it off. You're hurting her!"

"And she has a mouth to tell me if I am." Fang declares and pulls even harder. Lightning lets her, despite the pain. This is a test and she needs to pass it, for all their sakes. She's no pathetic shrinking violet, and she's never been one to let pain stop her from doing a single damn thing in her life. She muscles through it just like she does with everything else. "You walk with me now and leave these gents to whisper about what I bitch I am back here."

"Who's whispering?" Lightning whips her head around in shock. Not because of the sarcastic statement, but because of the speaker. Snow saying it would have been mildly surprising; Hope saying it stuns her.

"Well, well," Fang sing-songs. Lightning feels her hairs stand at attention. _How did this get ugly? _"Looks like junior's finally grown a pair." Fang takes a step forward. "When did your balls drop?"

Hope's eyes widen in embarrassed shock. Snow grits his teeth in what looks to be a real rage.

"Enough!" Lightning steps forward and positions herself between the two warring factions of their little group. She addresses them all but keeps her eyes locked with Snow's. "This is stupid. It's enough now. Leave it."

"She should apologize to the kid." Snow's demand isn't unreasonable, but that doesn't change anything. There's a better chance of getting an apology from Barthandelus for destroying their lives.

"Yeah, well, it's nice to have dreams, isn't it?" Leave it to Fang to keep pushing.

"Fang!" Vanille snaps. "Stop it now." Lightning is marginally impressed with the commanding authority Vanille manages to put into the words. Fang doesn't look even a bit cowed.

"You know," Sazh's voice booms from behind them startling them all. Lightning doesn't think she's ever heard Sazh raise his voice to such a decibel before. She looks over, finds him standing with his teeth clenched and lips pulled back in an angry snarl. _Sazh is pissed! _

"I'm real glad we're standing around in the middle of a hostile environment paying no attention to anything but each other and our own stupidity. You want to get us all killed over stupid bullshit!" The swearing has everyone agog. Sazh has always used E rated language as part of his 'daddy persona.' Lightning remembers her own parents stifling swears around her and feels a fresh pang at their loss. The feeling shocks her with its intensity.

"Everyone cool the hell off! We don't need this nonsense, and I'm sick of it all." Sazh yells. He looks over at Fang and says, "Why don't you take point? Take the soldier with you."

Fang releases Lightning's arm, turns to Sazh and says "Have I told you..."

"Yeah I know! I'm your very favorite," he grits out. "Blah blah blah. Now stop lying and go do something useful for once." She raises an eyebrow at him and he looks sheepish. Temper makes people say things that aren't true-even level headed fathers, it seems. "Sorry. Stop making trouble though."

Fang gives Sazh a knowing smirk and strolls away. "Coming then are you? Or do you want to hang about back here with the panty wastes?"

Lightning looks at Snow. His eye twitches and his jaw tenses to the breaking point as he stares after Fang. Lightning knows that if Snow didn't have a policy against hitting 'girls' there'd be some real trouble right now. Considering how pale and pasty he is, Lightning's pretty sure that trouble would all be his. She's once again happy that he believes in all that chivalrous crap. She says, "I'll be fine. Just..."

"Go. I've got your back."

"I know it." She pats his arm. "And that matters." _More than you know._

Snow meets her eyes and gives her a small nod. His lips quirk into a suggestion of a smile, but Lightning can see he's still too angry and exhausted to really pull it off. She turns and trails after Fang.

* * *

"You were a little hard on them, weren't you?"

"Eh, they'll get over it." Fang tosses over her shoulder. "We all needed a good scuffle, I think." She gives Lightning a predatory grin. "Keeps the juices flowing, you know?"

She doesn't, actually. But then again, she's doesn't usually need external motivation to throw down. Where Fang likes to do things big and showy, Lightning likes to keep things cut and dried. Any and all showmanship is just a byproduct for her. It's a major difference that used to piss Lightning off. Now she finds it reassuring. "Yeah, well as long as those juices don't include blood spatter right now, it's all good."

"Nah, it was never gonna go that far," Fang declares. Lightning thinks about the look in Snow's eyes and decides she doesn't share Fang's optimism. "The Dead Man barks loud."

"Don't call him that!" Lightning snaps, feels anger creep in for the first time. It feels good-familiar: a return to the normality she's been seeking. The memory of Snow's heartbeat slowing under her hands is too fresh for Lightning to be anything but disturbed and horrified. It's far too soon for levity. She might be up for joking in about three hundred years. Maybe. Fang gives her a conciliatory nod and Lightning tries to take her temper down a notch.

"And he's not all bark." She doesn't know why she feels obligated to say it, but she does. And where would Fang ever get such a ridiculous idea anyway? Lightning still remembers the force behind the little love tap he gave her back near Vallis Media, and he was only going through the motions of a kata. He bruised more than her ego that day, though she never told him so. He was upset enough by the idea of hurting her. "Don't make that mistake."

"Oh, I know he's got the bite to back it up, but I'm pretty sure his sense of honor would be dented if he threw the first punch at a 'girl.'" Fang snickers at the last word and Lightning throws a sharp glance at her. She wonders if Snow was actually dumb enough to share his views on 'girls' with Fang, or if Fang is just that good at reading people. She stares at the other woman trying to divine the truth, but Fang is unreadable. She considers the question for a moment.

_Even odds. No bet._

"What about you?" Lightning asks, unwilling to let the matter drop. She has to know if Fang is willing to take things that far for a bit of 'decompression.'

"What about me? I have no problem with a good old fashioned brawl, but I wasn't planning on hitting anyone. Wasn't the point now, was it? You're not exactly easy to rattle but I'd say the last few days have thrown us all of our game a bit. Figured you could use the distraction is all." Fang glances over at her with a smirk. "What? Don't you trust me?"

Lightning considers the question. _With my life,_ she thinks. She trusts all of them. How that happened is a mystery to ponder another day. She hasn't trusted anybody this absolutely...well, ever really. She glances at Fang, notes the twinkle in her eye. She's still playing games. Lightning plays along, figures it might keep things from getting too heavy. "Not remotely."

"I knew you weren't as dumb as you seemed." Lightning shakes her head at the rejoinder. They walk in silence for a bit and Lightning takes in the landscape. Woods, woods and more woods. Gran Pulse is beautiful, but she's pretty tired of it all the same.

"So, you looked like you were having a hell of dream when I woke you up." Lightning glances over at the other woman, finds Fang staring straight ahead, attempting to be casual.

She fails.

"Yeah," Lightning replies. "I was and it was."

"So...wanna tell me about it?" Lightning nearly stumbles at the question. She stops and stares at the side of Fang's head for a moment before moving on.

"Who are you?" Fang chuckles at her then shrugs. Since when does Fang ask anyone to talk about their dreams or feelings?

"It's your choice," Fang says and looks around before finally meeting Lightning's eyes. "I just figured, what with all the nonsense that went on from you keeping things all to yourself, you might have come round to the benefits of sharing with your friends. Guess I'm the stupid one then." Fang's tone never changes. There's no discernible anger and no hurt obvious, but Lightning thinks she knows Fang well enough now to say that both are present in abundance. Fang moves on as if she hasn't just thrown accusations around about Lightning being a crappy friend.

Lightning would like to be angry, but she isn't. Fang's right, after all. She's a selfish bitch and she's projected her own issues onto her friend. She feels shame burn her face. Fang deserves better.

It takes three large steps to catch up with Fang. She paces her and says, "I was dreaming about Barthandelus." Lightning doesn't look at Fang, but sees the other woman's head swivel towards her out of the corner of her eye.

"And?" Fang prompts. "That can't be it, because Barthandelus has had a special starring role an quite a few of both my least and most pleasant dreams since...I woke up pretty much. So what was this one like?"

Lightning opens her mouth to answer but finds herself hung up on one point in Fang's last sentence. "Your most pleasant dreams?"

Fang laughs. "Well, yeah. I always get a real charge out of killin' him, you know?" Lightning smiles and nods.

"That makes more sense."

"Why, what'd you think I meant?"

"I don't **EVEN **know," Lightning replies, though a few really horrifying things flashed through her mind. An entire lifetime's worth of nightmares in under three seconds. That's a new record!

"That was a fancy dodge of the topic, by the way," Fang says offhandedly. "You're getting smooth. You'll be fit for politics before you know it."

Lightning barks out a laugh at that, then puts her hand to her aching head when it fires a shooting star of agony behind her eyes. _Laughing=bad. Got it! _She keeps her voice low in deference to her growing migraine.

"No, I don't think I'm exactly what anyone has in mind for any sort of leader." _Not even for this group anymore. _"And anyway, that's not what I meant to do." It really wasn't, though she would be happier never talking about this ever again. "The dream about Barthandelus wasn't about...our Barthandelus."

"Hold up now! I don't know what's been going on with you all, but he's not MY anything. And if that's what you were thinking, then you really have gone round the bend." Lightning rolls her eyes again. For someone who asked her to talk about it, Fang sure doesn't seem to want to **listen**.

"Alright. I mean, I was someone else. And Barthandelus was there. Everything was destroyed. He said a whole bunch of nonsense to me, but at the end, before you woke me...he called me Ragnarok."

That pulls Fang up short. The other woman is nearly translucent she's so pale. "And why would he do that then?"

"Because I think I...this person...whoever the hell she was, **was **Ragnarok. She turned into it, then turned back into her." Fang is only getting paler, something Lightning can't believe is possible. Another shade and a half and Fang will be translucent. She hesitates continuing, but she can't stop now that she's started. It's like her own sort of purge. "I think she's the one that destroyed Paddra, but I can't be sure. We need to look at that book."

Fang sags, and Lightning realizes why the woman was so terrified. She thought Lightning saw her. Lightning wasn't certain until that moment that Fang really knew that she was Ragnarok. Hell, Lightning wasn't really certain until that moment that the entire dream about Fang and Vanille wasn't exactly that-a dream. Now she feels pretty confident that she's reached the right conclusions and she's not sure if she's happy or sickened.

Lightning considers broaching the topic with Fang to give her friend outlet for her fears. But Fang may not be ready for the ugly truths that live in Lightning's head, and right now Fang is the strongest member of their group. She needs to be on top of her game, not sifting through the pieces of her own broken mind for answers she may never find; answers she may never want to find. Fang is their best chance at surviving long enough to reach Oerba, but only if she's not distracted by her past. Every step forward forces two backwards and Lightning dismisses yearnings for answers from ancient books. Instead she switches topics.

"So, where the hell are we?" Lightning asks and hopes Fang will grab the lifesaver instead of choosing to sink into her own misery. Fang doesn't disappoint her.

"That's an excellent question," she replies. Lightning feels a cautious fear spread through her.

"You telling me you don't know?"

"No." Fang replies. "I just said it was an excellent question."

"Alright, enough with the smarmy games. " Lightning is impatient on her best day and she hasn't come close to an 'okay' day in weeks.

"Oh, you're no fun!" Fang declares. _You're not kidding. _"see that cliff face ahead?"

Lightning looks where Fang points but she can't see anything but woods. She decides not to get annoyed by what she can't help but see as another damn game. "No."

"Alright well, there's a cliff face up there that's attached to the Whispering Mountains. We need to get to the other side of the mountain range."

"Oh, is that all?"

Fang huffs a laugh. "Yep. Your little shortcut..." Lightning tenses at the hint of accusation.

"It wasn't MY anything," Lightning spits, hurling Fang's words from earlier right back at her. Fang nods and continues.

"Fair enough. **That** little shortcut...is that better cupcake?" Lightning scowls but Fang doesn't wait for a reply before continuing with "put us in this valley instead of at the Sulyya Springs where I was aiming to come out. That route would have taken us through the tower to get to Oerba. If I'm right about where we are, and I usually am, this path is going to put us a ways south. It adds some time to our journey."

"Oh goody. More time. Just what we don't have." Fang gives one nod to concede the point.

"Yeah, maybe. But considering what's probably waiting for us in the tower and the state of our little motley crew here, I'm thinking the long way round might actually help us. With luck..."

"Did you really just say that?"

"...I might be able to find a passage through the mountains that will let us avoid the tower altogether. If not, a few days extra to heal up won't be all bad."

Fang may have a point about the healing part, but Lightning can't help but worry about taking more time on this journey. To her, more time journeying is more time for problems to arise. Lightning knows damn well that their little group hasn't caught a break yet. She's not expecting life to start handing them favors now.

* * *

When they reach the foot of the mountain, Lightning knows that she was right. And she's pretty pissed about it, too!

"So, Fearless Leader," Snow says to Fang, his voice holding the keen edge of his earlier anger. "Have you given any thought to how the hell we're going to get up this mountain?"

It's a good question, though Lightning wishes Snow had phrased it differently. She stares up the sheer rock face and heaves an enormous sigh. Lightning feels the tension running through her and hopes that Fang doesn't snipe back at Snow. Things are still shaky from earlier and one little spark is going to ignite this entire powder keg.

"As a matter of fact, I have." Fang says. She gives them all a big fat smile that sends a shiver up Lightning's spine. It's somewhere between mischievous and evil and Lightning knows that no good can come of it.

"What's..." Hope starts and Lightning realizes what's about to happen...

Wind whips her hair into her mouth and eyes. She shivers at the increasing chill. Hope steps next to her, stands within the orbit of her personal space but doesn't touch her. She can feel Snow hovering behind her like a reassuring wall at her back. She closes her eyes, flinches from the increasing wind as a monster roars above them.

Bahamut arrives in style.

Fang laughs as her Eidolon swoops past them, circles above and then alights behind her. It shakes its head, snuffles, then paws at the ground in a manner that is more reminiscent of a dog or horse than some great Eidolon.

It snorts and roars. Everyone jumps back. Lightning's heartbeat trips over itself.

Well, maybe not a dog or horse then.

Fang walks over to the Eidolon and whispers to it, pats it like she might a pet. It twitches and calms, and Fang looks up at the cliff and back at Bahamut before saying, "Well ladies and gents, climb aboard." She turns around and winks at them. "Our ride is here."

"You have got to be kidding," Hope says. Lightning can't help but share his sentiment. It's not that she doesn't trust Bahamut, it's just...alright, she really doesn't trust Bahamut. Something in her twists and settles and she wonders if maybe it's actually Odin that doesn't trust Bahamut. Hope looks around, up and down, then back up at the cliff. "Isn't there another way?"

Fang looks over and narrows her eyes. She puts her hands on her hips and says, "Yeah, you can climb." She points up the sheer cliff face. "Fancy a go?"

Vanille walks over and takes Hope's hand. "Come on. We'll be fine! You can hang onto me," she whispers and drags Hope over toward the waiting Eidolon. He puts up no resistance.

Snow folds his arms and sidles alongside Lightning, shaking his head. "You know, I'm not sure if he did that on purpose or not, but I'm impressed."

Lightning looks over at him. "Who did what on purpose?"

"Hope." Snow says and nods his head towards where Hope still holds onto Vanille's hand. Lightning is still not sure what the hell Snow is talking about. He clarifies for her. "I'm not sure if he's a sneaky little bastard or just really, really lucky."

She looks back at the scene and stares until her brain plays catch up. Vanille is pressed bodily against Hope, helping to press him up onto Bahamut's back. Hope is blushing so fiercely that Lightning can practically feel the heat radiate off him from here. Snow's meaning finally clicks and Lightning barks out a laugh that zings through her damaged ribs and nearly doubles her over. Snow grabs her, hands clasping a little too tight in his panic. "I'm okay," she insists and shrugs him off. Snow narrows his eyes at her but doesn't dispute the claim. He holds up his hands in surrender and nods. He walks away from her, casting wary glances her way.

Lightning breathes through the pain in her body. She stares at the floor, waiting for it to pass, willing it away. She's so tired of this persistent weakness. Rationally, she knows that she's being too hard on herself; she's aware that she's making unreasonable demands on her overtaxed body. Still, knowing a thing doesn't do a whole lot to change a person's feelings, it seems. She's never been one to just sit back and take things. She's never been able to accept weakness; not in others, and never in herself.

Her whole body hurts in ways that she's never even imagined, let alone experienced. It's like someone has torn all her seams and ripped out her stuffing, leaving her an empty husk. There is a fine trembling running through her. It's more than just fatigued and overtaxed muscles. She can feel the vibrations rattling through her organs, like they're all in a state of flux and anticipation of a permanent mutation that is pursuing her with a determination that even the most dogged predator might envy.

She's on the brink. She can feel it.

She doesn't want to admit it, but she's terrified right now. She's never been this far from her own driver's seat before. It's like her body is moving on autopilot while her mind is getting loaded and daydreaming back in coach somewhere. Her brains still feel scrambled. There's a dull ache behind her eyes that feels like bone deep bruising. She wipes shaking fingers beneath her nose and is surprised to find no blood. She stares at the ground and breathes, focuses on her feet and demands that she get her bearings right now! Her whole body chuckles at the demand, the way classroom children chuckle at a substitute teacher. It's as if every part of her knows she holds no real authority over herself any longer; the truth is, her body is right! She's still not certain that she's not just walking in a reverie right now. Half of her expects to wake up back in Mah'Habara, trapped in a cave in alone and waiting for death.

She feels like she's exploding and imploding, folding and shredding all at once.

_Enough self pity. Lead, follow or get out of the way, Soldier._

She looks up from her bloodied, dirty boots and is startled to find Sazh standing two feet in front of her, watching her with a level, even gaze.

"What?" she snaps and he gives her the stink eye. She says, "Sorry," even though she's really not. At all. She's tired of being the roadside attraction in their little group. Half the time she feels like she needs to start juggling fireballs or something just to keep them entertained as they STARE at her. She likes to fly beneath notice and for the past weeks, she's gone from the background noise to center stage and she absolutely hates it.

"You know, I really don't want to get on that thing," Sazh confides and it takes Lightning a second to pull her head out of her own ass long enough to figure what he means. He jerks his head towards where Bahamut is waiting and Lightning can only find herself thinking, _'duh!'_

Maybe she should just get out of the way already seeing as how she couldn't lead a dance right now and she can't even follow a conversation.

"Since when are you afraid of flying?" Lightning asks. "I mean, you're a pilot."

"Yeah. I'm a pilot." He says it in a tone that screams, 'what's your point?' "Being a pilot means that **I** control the flying!" She laughs.

"You never struck me as a control freak."

"Nothing freaky about wanting control." He looks up and then back at her. "But I'm not really. I just don't like that big bastard."

_/Gotcha you big bastard!/_

The memory slices through her brain with the precision of a sharp blade. Something in her mind recalls being hunted again. She was unarmed and clueless, easy prey for her dogged pursuing predator. Sazh appeared like some sort of guardian angel and killed the bastard. She stops short, puts a hand to her head. There's no pain. It's more the suggestion of pain. "You alright Soldier?" Sazh asks and places a bracing hand against her back.

She nods, reconsiders and shakes her head. "That's specific," Sazh says and she laughs.

"I'm not sure if I'm remembering something or not." _That's very clear_. She looks at Sazh from the corner of her eye to find him waiting patiently. "The lines are still very blurry to me." She refuses to elaborate. If he doesn't get it, then he doesn't get it. Admitting her weaknesses has never been her strong suit.

"Alright," he says but doesn't prompt. Sazh is usually one to let people speak in their own time. It's one of the reasons she's so comfortable with him. There's no pressure and no pressing. The silence encourages her to continue.

"Um...I seem to remember you calling something a 'big bastard.'" Sazh's brow furrows, her stomach drops and Lightning follows up with a quick, "But I guess I dreamed that."

"No. No you didn't." He rubs the back of his neck and hair. She hears his chocobo chick 'wark' indignantly at the disturbance and he rolls his eyes and mumbles a scolding "you be quiet now." She raises an eyebrow at him and he continues, "Oh, yeah anyway. I just forgot about it I suppose; you know, since there were far more pressing matters. Like you bleeding to death."

She sighs. Yeah. She's going to have to ask about the whole bleeding to death thing again at a later date. She can't help but wonder if she actually died, or just **almost** died. There's a pretty large distinction.

"But yeah, those were some dogged bastards. I don't know how the hell they managed to follow us to, through and around Mah'Habara. I hope that was the last of them."

As soon as he says it, Lightning feels the truth. The pressing and growing weight upon her is gone. He's done it! Sazh completed the Cie'th stone's focus and freed her from her voluntary slavery. She wonders if that didn't save her from her premature transformation just as much as whatever spells and elixirs the others cast on her and poured into her. She touches her brand, exhales and smiles at him.

"You saved my life," she says. He looks stunned and she can't imagine why. She's only speaking the truth. "And you freed me." Sazh looks uncomfortable. "Thank you. "

"Nah, don't thank me, Soldier," Sazh stammers. "Call it payback for all the times you saved my ass."

She shakes her head at him. "I was helpless and you saved me," she declares. She needs him to understand what he's done for her. Sazh laughs at her and shakes his head. She feels her eyes widen, wonders for a moment if she looks as incredulous as she feels. She's trying to be serious here and he's making jokes.

"Now you wait just a minute! We've known each other a while now, right? I'd like to think I know you pretty well. And one thing I know for sure is that you are NEVER helpless. I don't care if you're unarmed and asleep. I'm pretty sure that if you were dead, you'd still be a formidable opponent."

She would blush, but she doesn't have enough blood for the task. "I think you overestimate me." She looks away from him.

"That's bull!" He ducks his head to catch her eyes. "You may be feeling a bit worn around the edges right now, and maybe you're even starting to doubt yourself. But you know what?"

He pauses, waiting for a response. "What?"

"There's nobody else I'd rather have at my back." She shakes her head. It's more than worn or exhausted. She feels like she's lost a huge chunk of herself. She's afraid that Lightning is gone now and all that's left is the shadow of a girl she buried when her parents died; not even enough to deserve the name 'Claire.' She's afraid that she's become a liability to the group, and worries that her presence might get them killed. She wants to say all these things.

She doesn't.

"Thanks," she whispers and starts to walk away.

"Soldier?" Sazh calls and she looks at him askance. "You've been through hell and come out the other side. We all got to watch the journey, but you took it alone." That's not strictly true, but she doesn't say so. He's not going to hear her arguments nor her negativity. He's not willing to hear the truth. "Don't be too hard on yourself if you're feeling...frail right now." She meets his eyes again, sees the crinkles at the corners indicative of a smile. "You've earned the right to some rest and you haven't had a chance yet. Fang and Vanille hope Oerba will give us all a break. I know I could use one already."

She knows he speaks the truth. It doesn't make her feel better. She still feels weak and broken.

"You know what? If you've lost your faith in yourself, don't you worry about it. I've got enough faith for the both of us right now." She feels like she might weep. Her face burns with shame and her eyes burn with unshed tears. She can't speak or she'll unravel. "Come on," Sazh says and puts an arm around her. "Let's not keep that big ugly waiting. He might decide to eat us after all." He looks over towards where everyone is waiting and NOT looking at them in a conspicuous manner. "And I think the Hero is about to blow a gasket. What do you say? Ready to get the hell out of this valley? I know I sure as hell am!"

She laughs and lets Sazh lead the way.

* * *

Riding Bahamut is a lot like bungee jumping with razor wire wrapped around your waist: it might almost seem fun until you realize it's going to turn you into chum.

Lightning has never been fond of flying, but until right now, she was never afraid of it either. Lightning enjoys being in control of herself too much to really lose herself in the feel of wind blowing back her hair, or the weightlessness that accompanies a rapid plummeting. She always felt better with her feet on terra firma. As a trained soldier, she's always had a deep and abiding trust in her own body and abilities. Despite all of that, her feelings had never risen above marginal distaste.

Until now.

Now, as Fang whoops and urges the giant dragon to move faster, Lightning realizes that it is possible to develop full-blown phobias late in life.

Bahamut dips once, and Lightning's stomach bottoms out. She breathes through her nose. Her head is spinning. She is **so** very unprepared for this sort of movement. Her body aches, her head is still light and her entire digestive system is searching for an escape route. Each movement of the body beneath her has her swallowing down mouthfuls of saliva in an effort not to throw up the meager contents of her stomach all over her friends, the dragon and the countryside below. She feels weak and queasy and she wipes a hand across her face to collect the cold sweat gathering on her forehead and upper lip.

The small innocuous move costs her a solid grip on the Eidolon beneath her. Bahamut banks right, makes a hard turn with a shimmy twist, and Lightning catches air of her own at the acceleration. She feels her grip slip on the dragon's back and has one moment of sheer terror before she feels a hand grip her at her waist and steady her.

"Easy, Sis," Snow whisper-shouts in her ear. "I got ya." She's too relieved to be embarrassed at the need for Snow to play hero for her. The words disappear into the whipping wind, and quick glance around confirms that no one else noticed what just happened. "Fang? Is there any way we can take this ride a bit easier? You know, so we don't all fall off this bitch?" Snow yells.

Fang peeks back over her shoulder. "I wouldn't call Bahamut names if I were you, unless of course you want to reclaim the title of dead man."

Lightning scowls at Fang and digs her fingers into the armoring on Bahamut's back. She closes her eyes at the wave of nausea that washes over her.

"You alright, Light?" Hope asks. She shakes her head and wonders if she's as green as she feels. "Fang you need to take it easy."

"Keep your panties on! We're going to be there in a few minutes."

"Look OUT!" Vanille shrieks at a pitch and note that no human should be able to attain. Lightning is so busy cringing at voice that the words themselves fly right past her.

"Holy...**Mother**!" Sazh yells and Fang lets out a wordless shout. Lightning opens her eyes and sees something three times the size of Bahamut diving right at them. Bahamut goes into a steep dive under the attacking creature. The maneuver unseats Lightning, but doesn't loosen her death grip.

Hope loses his.

She sees Hope flail past her, watches as his clothes catch air like a parachute and carry him off the Eidolon's back. She screams and makes a grab for him that misses. Sazh leaps after him and barks one "Hero" out as he dives for Hope. Snow reaches out with his bad hand and catches Sazh's belt as Sazh catches Hope's wrist.

Snow grunts, shouts as his mangled hand is twisted by the combined effects of windshear and two people's body weights.

Lightning lets go of the dragon and dives for Sazh, gets both hands insinuated into his clothing and pulls until his center of gravity is once again on Bahamut's back. Then she climbs over him to reach for Hope. "Hope!" She yells. The boy's eyes are sealed tight with terror. She stares past him into the abyss below. "HOPE! Give me your hand!"

She feels Sazh pulling, feels Snow wind his hand into her cape to anchor her. She senses Vanille's magic crackling through the air, wrapping and winding them up in a protective shell. Fang yells, "Here it comes again."

"Sis! You gotta get him now!" Snow's voice is filled with panic.

Lightning lunges forward, gets one hand into the collar of Hope's shirt and the other around his arm right before all her balance disappears. For a moment she feels gravity grab onto her body and she feels the beginnings of a plummet before Snow jerks back on her cape like a leash. The hard jerk lights up fresh agony in her body but she barely notices them. She's too fixated on the trembling boy who is two hand-holds from death. Someone grabs onto the backs of Lightning's knees, someone else gets far too familiar with her belt and her hipbones but then three people hoist and she's got the dragon's body beneath the full length of her body and Hope in her arms and she really doesn't care who had their hand on her ass five seconds before.

She feels a set of arms close around her and she hears Sazh shout, "We're good."

"Yeah? " Fang says as if she cannot believe they're all still alive. Then her tone changes to false bravado as she shouts, "'Bout time!"

Lightning pants into Hope's hair, feels the boy tremble against her like a frightened baby bird. She keeps her eyes shut for a moment and squeezes him tighter, feels the vibrations of him talking hum against her body and throat. The words are lost in the twin roars of the wind and Bahamut.

She feels gravity vanish for a moment and realizes that they are diving again. She opens her eyes, stares up into the clouded blue skies and sees the attacking monster pass overhead, close enough to kiss were she so inclined.

_Screw this!_

All the frailty that she felt so keenly earlier disappears. Rage chokes her and her most protective instincts take over. She presses Hope back from her and into Snow's arms. Snow's got his right hand cradled against his chest but he catches Hope in the crook of his left arm, hauls him backwards towards his body. She sees Snow call out to her, but she can't hear him over the blood pounding in her ears. She gets up onto hands and knees and looks around. She gets eyes on the attacker and feels her basest instincts pounding on the cockpit door in an attempt to hijack her body.

"Whatever you're thinking, Soldier, don't do it."

She looks over at Sazh and gives him a smile. "You said you trusted me."

"I do trust you. That's not going to do you any good if you don't trust yourself."

She considers and watches, keeps one eye on the empty sky for the attack she knows is coming. Keeps the other eye on the ground and makes calculations.

This she can do. She's no good at pondering and agonizing. But action-she was born for action!

"You're right Sazh. I don't trust myself." She doesn't look at him but she can feel the relief like a temperature change. She turns toward him and says, "But I do trust all of you."

She sees the realization in his eyes come a split second before the window of opportunity opens. She claps him on the back, grabs her weapon and takes a leap of faith off of Bahamut's back.

* * *

TBC...

Another cliffhanger. I'd apologize except I'm not really sorry. At all!

I hope you all had a safe and happy New Year!


	27. The Moment of My Greatness

Disclaimer: I still don't own Final Fantasy XIII or its characters.  
Sorry this is so late, but I have 25 pages of chapter for you to make up for the tardiness. If I read and revise this chapter one more time, I might just delete it.

* * *

"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."  
Ayn Rand

-The Moment of My Greatness-

"Soldier!"

"Lightning!"

"You crazy bitch!"

The voices all swirl together with the rush of air against her skin and the rush of adrenaline inside her body. She pushes aside thoughts of her friends, her family, and her frailty and concentrates on the feeling of freefall.

The fear of death that was so potent earlier is gone. There is a thrill to be had while nestled in the embrace of windshear and gravity that tops any and all others. The wind combs through her hair and caresses her skin with the same care a lover might. Every part of her tingles in enthralled anticipation. She's thrown herself from the precipice and given herself over to fate. It feels amazing...

For about three seconds, Lightning knows freedom kissed with a shade of bliss. It disappears into the crushing reality of imminent death.

The enormous body slips beneath her and she gets her first real look at it. It has a vague resemblance to a serpent. Very vague. There's some sort of round plate on the monster's back, and she spies what looks to be arms near the head. The tail of the creature almost resembles a large string of beads as it whips back and forth. The entire thing is so unnatural looking that she wonders if it is not just another cobbled together invention of her broken mind.

She dismisses doubts, tucks her arms and legs to cut the wind resistance and fires right at the tail like a rocket. She impacts with enough force to stagger her and make her aching ribs screech and rattle in protest, but she's too hyped up and excited to let the slip even slow her.

She skitters across and over the bizarre plate, hits the tail with her feet, gropes for a grip and almost loses her weapon in the process. Almost: she is no amateur, after all. She is one of the Guardian Corps' best and brightest! She clenches her left hand into the odd armoring on the monster's back, her thighs around the bizarre tail, and manages to gain purchase on the thrashing monster. The beast squeals and flips, and Lightning feels friction burns ignite on her knees and inner thighs. She clenches every muscle to halt her loss of ground, feels the burn in her thighs match the burn that's undoubtedly **on** them now. She digs in with her knees until she feels bruises forming, tightens her grip until her fingers cramp. She lifts the Edged Carbine, points the muzzle at where she approximates the monster's head would be and squeezes.

The bullets impact the armored skull and the monster screams and screeches, starts losing altitude at an alarming rate. The creature isn't dead, and it sure as hell isn't bleeding. Stunned perhaps, but it's heading for the ground faster than gravity can pull it there. It takes every shred of strength in her weary body to keep her seat on the monster's back.

She grits her teeth and does her best to adhere to the body beneath her. At these speeds, air can become both wedge and hammer; if it can slip between her and the monster, she'll be splintered off and cast into the sky like dandelion seeds on a summer breeze.

The monster bucks, and she loses her grip. It bucks again and she slips, skitters backwards and hits the next part of the odd beaded tail.

"Hang on, Sis!" She hears the voice but she doesn't look for him. She exhales a sigh of relief, finds herself gaining confidence.

If they are there, she'll be fine; if her friends have come, she will not fall.

She hears a roar and an answering scream that vibrates through the body beneath her. She can smell the magic around her, feel it tingle and sizzle through her nerve endings. She hears gunshots firing off in bursts. The monster slows and she regroups, gains her knees, switches to the blade, gets a two handed grip on it and thrusts it downward.

The monster screams again and twirls, nearly throws her sidelong into the abyss. She has no leverage with which to complete her deathblow or withdraw her weapon. She holds onto the embedded weapon as the monster tries to buck her off, uses it like a saddle horn. When the creature stops trying to throw her, she lets her desperation provide a solution; she flicks the switch on her weapon to retract the blade and watches as the blade moves, shudders and finally tears through the soft connective...tissue seems like the wrong word, but it's the only word she's got for what's holding this monster together. Her Edged Carbine severs a large part of the tail as it retracts, sends it plummeting towards the ground...

With her still perched on it.

The world disappears from beneath her, and speeds toward her at once. She doesn't even have time to be afraid.

"No! Lightning!"

"Fang..."

"On it!"

She clings to the severed tail and hopes that its surface area will increase wind resistance, and buy her enough time...

"SIS!" She opens her eyes

_(when did she close them?)_

and sees Bahamut flying near. She feels hope kindle then burst like a bubble.

Close, but not close enough. The Eidolon's wingspan keeps it too far to reach Snow's outstretched hand. "Jump, Sis! I've got you!"

She considers her options and realizes that she doesn't have any. Snow's outstretched hand is her only chance.

_/I don't trust myself...But I do trust all of you./_

Her own words give her the strength to match her courage. She hurls herself off the severed tail and into the air. Wind whips her in a circle, sends her head over heels and steals all her bearings. She spins on all three axes; she can't get enough of a horizon to get eyes on her target. She doesn't know which way is up anymore.

She hates flying. Absolutely hates it!

The spinning nauseates her, as do her unfocused eyes. She feels her heart raging inside her, feels the wind buffeting her. She wonders if she's about to be torn to shreds by a pissed off monster with a stump for a tail.

She stops suddenly enough to rattle her body and send pain singing through her. She chokes and gasps for air as she strangles. She hears something tearing, snapping, and she realizes that her cloak is hanging her and that its fabric and the clasp are quite literally her lifeline right now. She reaches upwards, feels a hand grab onto her left forearm and she clutches it in one hand and her weapon in the other.

Hands. So many hands pulling at her until the pressure around her neck disappears. There are voices mixing in with the roar of blood and wind in her ears. She can't pinpoint what they're saying. She twists until her face is smashed into Bahamut's armor. She pants for a second before clawing her way upwards. Someone grabs her right hand and pulls. She maintains her death grip on her weapon and hopes the person can hold onto her when she can't hold onto them. Someone else gropes lower. She feels a large hand slide past her hip, clutch at the material of her clothes, before tracing even lower – to the point of getting fresh – before finally snagging onto her thigh pouch. She feels blunt fingernails gouge into the skin of her thigh as thick fingers worm their way beneath the leather. She hangs pinned for a moment before her two comrades jerk upwards. She gasps one breath through clenched teeth before she feels her knees hit Bahamut's back.

She exhales.

A set of arms slips around her waist and hauls her in, maneuvers her until her back is flush against another body. Her right hand is clamped and cramped around the stock of her Edged Carbine. Every muscle in her body trembles, every organ flutters in the aftermath of her most recent near-death experience.

She really needs to not do that again for a while.

She tries to synchronize her breathing with the body (Snow – she knows it's Snow) behind her, but his respiration is as erratic as hers. She can feel his heart raging in his chest where he is pressed against her back. She pats the hand across her ribs, feels the clamminess of the skin. Snow tightens his grip and rests his head on the crown of hers, yells something she can't hear into her hair. She nods anyway, figures that he's probably shouting at her for her latest act of insanity.

It doesn't matter what he's saying; he can curse her all he wants. She's just happy to be alive for it right now.

She sees Hope's worried face float before her. His mouth is moving but she can't hear over her own heartbeat. Hope gives up trying to talk to her, just takes her hand and tightens his fingers around it.

"I'm fine," she yells and knows how ridiculous the statement is. She feels a rumble against her back and flinches, peeks back over her shoulder and sees Snow shaking his head. She looks back at Hope, then past him to meet Sazh's eyes. Sazh shakes his head at her once before giving her a big grin.

"You know what, Soldier? Fang's right! You are a crazy bitch!"

Lightning opens her mouth to argue the declaration, but is cut off when Fang yells, "Incoming!"

Lightning looks up and gets a glimpse of the dive-bombing monster just before Snow twists around and smashes her face first into Bahamut's back. She grunts when she feels an arm sling across her shoulder blades to pin her down. She would struggle, but Fang screams "hang on. It's about to get bumpy."

Lightning lifts her head to see what's happening, spots Sazh doing his best to cling to Bahamut and shield Hope at the same time. The dragon king banks, twists, dives then climbs. Lightning feels as if she's going to fly off the Eidolon's back any moment.

She is never flying again. Ever! If Sazh or Fang try to make her, she's going to shoot them.

Lightning looks around and spots the cliff summit within range – only seconds away! She feels elated at the idea of getting solid ground beneath her feet again.

"Look out!" Sazh shouts a split second before something impacts the dragon's side. Bahamut roars in pain, spins and flips.

The world becomes a twisting blur of blue, green and brown. Snow's arm disappears from around her body just as the dragon's body disappears from beneath her. She feels wind and air embrace her for the third time in minutes: cool, soft and comfortable between her fingers, beneath her body. Her mind races for a solution as her eyes seek a horizon. She finds neither before her back slams into something hard enough to knock the wind from her lungs, the weapon from her hand and consciousness from her mind.

* * *

_She's swimming in a warm darkness. Or perhaps she's floating. She wonders if she's dead and this calm dark is the afterlife. She considers for a moment, and decides that it would be okay if it were. She feels at peace – something she has not felt since being branded._

_Warm moist air blows across her neck and she shudders. She opens her eyes wider in an effort to pierce the inky nothingness, but there's not a molecule of light to aid her dilated pupils. She abandons the effort to see and focuses instead on other senses. _

_She can smell something. It's familiar and tangy. Blood perhaps. She wonders if it's hers but finds concern a distant thing. _

_Dead people don't bleed after all._

_She casts out a wider net with other senses. There is sound in the darkness._

_/Ka-thump...Ka-thump...Ka-thump./_

_A heartbeat._

_Her own heart picks up the pace at the realization._

_Dead people don't have heartbeats either. The thought smashes the dam, and fear pours in like a river._

_"Who's there?" Her voice sounds hollow in the void. _

_Another hot wet gust of air blows across her back and lifts her hair. She recognizes it now as an exhalation. Considering the surface area it covered, it's from a very large source._

_If she were disembodied, she would not have feeling, skin, a heartbeat or hair. She is not dead. She is not dreaming._

_She is someplace – _something_** – **__else entirely._

_She tries to get away, but there's nowhere to go. She thrashes in place until her heart pounds so hard she fears it might explode from her chest. _

_**FEAR...**_

_Terror grips her._

_**NO... **_

_The words are little more than breath. Each one an exhalation that smears water vapor across her flesh. The voice is everywhere and nowhere. It's inside her and around her. _

_**...ONE...WE...**_

_She doesn't understand and doesn't want to. She just wants to get away._

_**VENGEANCE...**_

_The word sparks a memory. The desire to destroy and rend everything. To hurt those who hurt her. _

_**OURS.**_

_She remembers the rage, but can't remember what happened after the blind fury took over._

_**ONE.**_

_She feels cradled, comforted. _

_**FOREVER...**_

_A child in its mother's womb. _

_**ONE...**_

_She understands now._

_**ALL...**_

_She feels them now. Hears their pain._

_**ONE...**_

_She is not her. _

_**TOGETHER...**_

_She is them...they are her. _

_**WE...**_

_They are one._

_**BRING...**__._

* * *

"Light!"

The panic in Hope's voice shatters the dream, sends understanding down the drain. Anger swells in her chest – she was so close. She feels like there are things crawling beneath her skin, like something is living and growing within her body. Or is it her mind?

Perhaps it's both. Or one in the same.

"LIGHT!" She ignores the sensations and leaps up. She's in motion before she has time to assess damages. Everything hurts, so she decides there's no time to survey her injuries anyway. Pain is a sign of life and she'll take that gladly right now. Her eyes shoot open as she flips her feet over her head in the sloppiest impression of a backwards somersault she's ever done. The world spins and twirls as she gains her feet. She stares around for a long second trying to figure out why she can't find the battle.

Or her weapon.

"Drop, Soldier!"

Lightning hits the ground and rolls, feels the heat from a powerful fire spell singe the hairs off her arms. She smells burning hair and cloth and flinches at a smart burn on the back of her left knee. She rolls and finds that the edge of her cape is ablaze, rolls and rolls again until the fire is extinguished, nothing but char, smolder and smoke left to show for the close call.

She lifts the blackened material between her thumb and index finger, then looks up towards the attacking monster. It looks different at eye level; it no longer looks like a wounded, disfigured animal. It is armored and commanding, golden 'wings' appearing from the strange looking disc on its back, the remaining 'bead' of its tail glowing with each spell, and things click into place for Lightning. This is no mere Pulsian monster. The oddness of the body, armor plating, powerful magic and metamorphosing body suggest something much more dangerous.

It's a fal'Cie.

"Crap," she mumbles as the attacking fal'Cie sets the world ablaze with another potent fire spell. Everyone scrambles and dodges and for a second, Lightning thinks they've flipped death off once again. A shrill cry and continuing scream disabuses her of the notion and chills her to her core.

It's a primal scream, followed hard by another one.

"Vanille!" Sazh yells. She whips around and sees Sazh ripping off his jacket and throwing it over the flames engulfing Vanille's skirt. Sazh drops to his knees beside the burning girl, pats and rolls her before scooping her up and retreating in an effort to get her clear of the battle zone.

Correction: it is a pissed off fal'Cie that is doing its stellar best to kill her friends.

Lightning climbs to her feet. Bahamut is hitting the broken fal'Cie with everything that its got, and the strange creature takes each hit in stride. It couldn't be less interested in the Dragon King if it were a mosquito and the thought alone is enough to terrify Lightning.

The fal'Cie whirls and unleashes a series of spells that stagger Bahamut. Lightning hears Fang yelling something and Lightning spends a stupid second wondering what happens to a l'Cie if their Eidolon is killed.

**/ONE/**

She decides she never wants to find out.

She scans for her weapon, spots the indent in the ground where she impacted and spies her weapon about five meters from there. She limps past the outline of her body pressed into dirt and sketched and smeared with blood – she'll worry about that later – and dives for her weapon. She grabs it, rolls back to her feet with more grace than she deserves, but far less than usual.

The fal'Cie notices that she's on the move and casts a spell that kicks up enough wind to blow her off her feet and steal the breath from her lungs. She flies backwards, hits the ground hard and keeps moving, lifting and bouncing and skipping like a stone on a pond surface. Each impact with the ground rattles her ribs and threatens her grip on her weapon. She gropes for purchase as she accumulates friction burns and bruises down the backs of both legs, and across her back and arms. She claws at the ground as the wind intensifies; she tears her fingernails off, tumbles ass over teakettle towards the cliff's edge.

She flicks the switch on her weapon and drives the blade into the earth as her feet blow over the side of the cliff. She grunts at the agony of holding her body weight aloft with her injured arm. The pain is tearing and burning and she's afraid that the oft-injured appendage will lack the strength necessary to continue holding on. She flails in the wind like a tattered flag until she manages to get her other hand around her weapon. She pulls herself upwards and forwards, feels the weakened muscles in her chest and back spasm under the strain.

She hauls her body back over the cliff edge and lands in an uncoordinated heap. She and pants on the ground in an effort to center herself before looking back towards the battle. The wind blows dirt into her open eyes. She flinches from the sting, feels tears pool behind her clenched lids. She wipes the back of her arm across her eyes, feels tears and dirt smear across her arm and curses. She blinks, can't see anything, and ends up with more dirt in her eyes. She swears again, as creatively as possible, and gropes blindly for her weapon, lays hands on it and wiggles it to free it from where it's embedded in the ground. The weapon comes free with a jerk. She stumbles, and nearly topples backwards off the cliff again.

"Light!" Hope yells and something inside her responds. She's anxious and terrified, and so angry at her blind fumbling!

Her icy terror flips on her, sets off a slow burn that starts in her chest and works its way outwards. It feels like the worst flush, hottest fever and worst sunburn combined. It's like her blood has turned to lava. Her eyeballs feel like they're melting, and her skin is hypersensitive. The air caressing her skin feels like ten thousand needles.

Her throat is so raw that she figures she must be screaming. She can't hear anything but the boiling of her blood in her veins.

She senses movement to her right and rolls, dodges. The pain disappears into the same abyss that stole her hearing. She keeps her burning eyes closed and focuses on this bizarre new sense she's developed. She can almost see the fal'Cie and her friends, though the sensation is nothing like sight. She can practically taste the magical attacks before they happen. She rolls and flips, homes in on the attacker and closes the distance with a sprint and back flip. She feels her Edged Carbine rebound off of armor plating.

Anger buzzes in like a swarm of hornets behind her eyes. She grits her teeth, channels the anger into a wicked spell that she sends into her Edged Carbine. The flamestrike breaks through the armor and she brings her weapon around for another hit as the monster counters.

She hits the ground hard enough to knock all her senses back into her just before it knocks her senseless.

* * *

_**...TOGETHER. **_

_She drifts, but she's not alone. _

_**ONE.**_

_She never has to be alone again. The thought is comforting and when she holds it in her heart, she can feel the arms of those who came before hold her. _

_**COME. FIND PEACE.**_

_She reaches for the monster in the darkness, longs to join it, become it..._

* * *

"Lightning!"

Whomever is calling her sounds far away. Miles and miles. She ignores the voice in her ears and reaches for the voice in the abyss again. There's comfort there...

A sharp sting on her cheek leaves her jaw aching and her ears ringing. She feels something brush against her eyelashes and flinches away.

"Wake up!" She senses the hand coming for her this time and catches it before it connects with her cheek.

"Hit me again and I'll break all your fingers," Lightning snaps before peeling one eye open to glare at Hope.

"Get the hell up then, Light!" She really hates Hope right now. She hates him for dragging her back from peace into nothing but bright agony.. Her head is splitting, her ribs ache. Her entire body is one big, throbbing wound. She just needs a little bit of rest. Why can't he understand that? She's been running on empty for what feels like eternity. She's pretty sure that her bruises have bruises of their own right now and she hasn't slept...ever. At least not since coming to Gran Pulse. She feels like she's tumbling backwards, sliding down into sleep when someone shakes her.

"Please, Light! Please, wake up. We need your help."

Her eyelids flutter and the world looks like a mix of a strobe light and amateur stop motion. It takes all her energy to prop her eyes open.

"Huh?" She says. She feels stupid and sluggish.

_/She feels alone./ _

She winces at the sharp pain tearing through her gut when she tries to sit up. She curls around the pain and breathes. She barely notices Hope put his hand on her ribs until he sends cool, healing magic into her body. She wants to protest but the lessening of pain and the euphoria of numbness keep her silent. She bites her lip bloody as Hope casts, and when he's done she looks up at him.

He's clammy and sweaty. She swallows when she notes a trail of blood snaking out of one nostril.

"Thanks," she whispers, and realizes how lame it sounds. She should not have allowed him to do it, but she needed the healing – she looks over Hope's shoulder and sees that the fal'Cie is still beating the hell out of Fang and Snow – and her friends need her. "Damn it!"

They are all screwed anyway. What difference can one spell make?

She's on her feet and charging into battle before she has time to debate a strategy. Snow is still weak from his recent brush with death and is not faring well against an angry fal'Cie, leaving Fang as the primary line of attack and defense. Fang may be tough, but she's not tough enough to hold off a fal'Cie on her own. Lightning watches her friend deflect hit after hit, absorb blow after blow and wonders how long Fang can possibly hold out under the onslaught.

Lightning checks her weapon and tries to get a good angle on the fal'Cie when Fang launches herself into the air with a loud, hair-curling curse, twirls her Bladed Lance fast enough to kick up a downdraft and finally lands a blow on the fal'Cie's head. It's the most devastating one hit attack Lightning has ever witnessed and she stands there stupefied for a moment, wondering if she is hallucinating again. The fal'Cie staggers and Lightning wastes no time delivering her own sharp attacks. The creature reels and flails, spins around and catches her with the broken end of its tail right in the ribs.

The hit stuns her, numbs her entire body for a moment before fiery pain slams into her. She sails through the air and impacts something softer than the ground, but harder than she'd like. She ends up on her back staring at a rapidly blurring world. She coughs, feels her mouth flood, tastes the coppery tang of blood. She can't catch her breath and the feeling ramps up panic.

"Easy, Sis."

She ignores the ridiculous command and tries pull huge gulps of air. She can feel the tension in her chest match the tension in the atmosphere. She gulps again, hears the crackle, then wheeze of air trickle into her lungs and she wonders if she's finally sustained a deadly injury to her damaged thoracic cavity. Wonders if this is what dying feels like.

**/ONE/**

She feels her brand ignite, and she reaches for all her power in a blind panic.

Odin appears in response to her desperation.

The massive Eidolon stands over her, hurls powerful magic at still dazed fal'Cie to keep it off balance before bending down and placing a massive hand over her collapsed chest.

The magic that pours into her hurts more than the injury. Every muscle in her body contracts at once. She thinks she might have puked, but she can taste air again as she screams and howls. She hears Snow shouting threats but the Eidolon ignores him, as she knew it would. The healing magic that Odin unleashes on her burns like an electrical fire, sends jolts and spasms through all her nerve endings. It goes on and on forever and Lightning almost wishes it would kill her.

Until it ceases and she feels worn and exhausted, but whole again.

**/ONE/**

The Eidolon lifts her and places her back on her feet, pulls its weapon and charges at the fal'Cie. Odin's weapon, Zantetsuken, is a wicked, sparking beam of light as the Eidolon hacks and slashes. Snow claps a hand on her shoulder and then charges back into the fray.

There's a buzzing in her brand that radiates through her entire central nervous system. She lifts her Edged Carbine and throws herself at the attacking fal'Cie with fierce glee.

She moves in tandem with Odin, feels whole and at peace and wonders if this is what love is like: to be part of a greater whole, to find peace in a perfect symbiosis. If this is what Serah feels with Snow, she understands now why her sister was so doggedly determined to change Lightning's mind about him; because the world seems clearer than it ever has before; colors seems sharper as magic pours through her, as she anticipates Odin's next attack and finds its perfect compliment.

It's like instinct and training balled into one flawless package.

Lightning spots Fang launching another of those devastating attacks, senses Hope readying a powerful spell, sees Snow pummeling the remnants of a fractured tail into powder, and Lightning realizes something in that moment that she's never even considered.

They are going to win! And not just this battle; they are going to win this war that the fal'Cie have waged on humanity.

The realization elates her, sets her brand tingling with even more magic, elevates her to a new plateau. She feels powerful, unstoppable – more than human. Her head buzzes with magic and euphoria, and she channels it into her blade as some odd combination of elemental magic, drives it deep into the fal'Cie's gut and screams as she pours ever more magic into the wound.

This thing will not win. The fal'Cie are the enemy and she will destroy them all if she must.

Smoke pours from the monster's wound along with some viscous fluid that Lightning can't identify. It covers her blade and her hands as she twists her Edged Carbine deeper into the mortal wound. The fal'Cie shudders, screams and collapses into a dying heap on the forest floor.

The quiet is a bigger shock than the cacophony of battle. All she can hear is breathing – hers, her friends'...the fal'Cie's.

The dying god before them gurgles, chuckles and grates out something that almost sounds like a word.

"Is it...is it talking to us?" Hope asks.

_Talking?_ Too bad it didn't try that approach before attacking them.

She looks next to her at the boy's pale face. He's all wide eyes and waxy skin; he looks horrified, relieved and nauseated. She looks back at the wrecked and dying fal'Cie and it writhes. The victory flush fades into icy misery.

She can understand Hope's feelings.

"It's Dahaka," Fang says, and sounds sorry. "A Pulse fal'Cie. He's the guardian of the air. I don't know why...why he – it – would attack us."

"A-Abominations," Dahaka gasps, chokes and coughs out more of that viscous nastiness that must be the fal'Cie equivalent of blood.

Lightning flinches at the accusation. Hope shifts, wraps his arms around himself.

"Defilers!"

Lightning looks at Fang for an explanation, but Fang won't meet her eyes.

"Traitors!" Dahaka accuses and rolls, gasping pathetically in its death throes.

Victory tastes like ashes. Lightning doesn't even have the will to be angry at the theft of their hard won glory. Dahaka glares at Fang before pinning her with a hard look.

"Destroyer," it whispers at it expels its last breath.

"What?" Hope asks, sounding horrified. "What does that mean?

"It doesn't mean anything. Don't listen to it, Kid." Snow declares, putting a reassuring hand on Hope's shoulder.

"But..."

"But nothing. That thing attacked us. If we didn't kill it, it would have killed us. It's simple." He spits on the ground to punctuate the point.

_Simple...sure. _

_Except_, Lightning thinks, _it really isn't. _This fal'Cie had a reason for attacking them. She can't figure out precisely what that reason might be, but it's there, flirting with her periphery, teasing her subconscious. It's like she has all these puzzle pieces but she just can't arrange them in the right order yet.

She has a feeling that when she does put it all together, the answer isn't going to please her. At all.

"Can I get some help over here?" Sazh yells. The fear in his voice yanks Lightning from her abstract ponderings.

"Vanille!" Fang shouts and takes off towards where Sazh managed to pull Vanille to safety, Hope hard on her heels.

Lightning spends another moment staring at the dead fal'Cie and tries to let go of her regret.

A target's a target. This fal'Cie tried to kill them. If they hadn't killed it, it would have torn them to pieces. She refuses to feel guilty for fighting for survival. She grabs the tattered remains of her cape to wipe the goop off her weapon and something dark and unnatural on her arm catches her eye.

She turns her arms upwards and stares in wonder at new thick reddish black lines tracing like vines from her wrists all the way to the armpits of both arms. She holsters her weapon and traces the strange lines, realizes that they follow the paths of her veins. She holds her arms out to the sides, sees that the lines disappear under the straps of her shirt and arc over her clavicle to end at her brand. She turns her arms over sees that the skin of both of them looks dingy.

Gray.

It's progressing. Her stomach flutters, her chest tightens and she realizes that Dahaka was right.

_/Abomination/_

She shakes the word off, turns away from the carcass and walks towards where her friends have congregated.

"What do we do?" Fang asks, sounding frantic. Lightning speeds up, reaches her friends in seconds to find that are staring at Vanille.

"It's fine," Vanille squawks. "It barely hurts."

"What happened?" She blurts. She pushes past Snow to drop to one knee beside the injured girl.

"Burns." Sazh grunts, then looks up at Lightning. "Bad ones."

"They're not that bad," Vanille insists.

Lightning lifts the coat that's still covering the girl's leg and sees the mottled mess of her thigh. Vanille's leg is burned from hip to knee in varying degrees of horrible. There are patches of angry red skin covered in large blisters, surrounding a deep black charred circle. Lightning reaches out and can feel the heat radiating from the angry burn before she gets close to making contact.

"Vanille..." Fang chokes.

"I'll be fine."

"These are bad," Lightning declares. She's seen these types of chars before on a soldier in her unit. That poor soul was unfortunate enough to get caught in an explosion that she herself barely escaped. She pulled him from the wreckage, but not before he sustained deep burns over more than half of his body. His clothing melted to his skin. His skin melted to the muscle.

She's never seen anything remotely like it – until now.

"They're not that bad." Vanille is pale and shaky. Her voice catches with fear. "But...it won't heal."

Lightning doesn't blame Vanille for being frightened. Burns are terrifying injuries. That burned soldier died screaming, but not before nearly going insane from the agony of having the burns scrubbed in an attempt to restore blood flow. When it was apparent that the tissues were too damaged to be saved, he underwent a series of miserable procedures for debridement. It was barbaric and horrifying, full of cutting, and maggots, then more washing, scrubbing, and screaming.

She could hear him howling in animal agony from down the hall, where she was treated for small burns and some smoke inhalation. He was a stranger to her – a nameless grunt like herself, who just wasn't fast enough – but his death was the most up close and personal she experienced since her parents' death.

After all that torment, the soldier developed a severe infection and went into shock.

Death, when it finally claimed him, was a mercy.

She refuses to acknowledge that truth right now. They have access to powers that the military doctors couldn't imagine. Vanille's burn is small by comparison. There is no way that this sweet, perky (sometimes irritating) girl will suffer the same fate as that soldier.

Lightning won't allow it.

"Sazh? Do we have Elixir?" The elixir seems to help accelerate healing, and since spells aren't working, potions are their best bet. Sazh shakes his head.

"We don't have anymore," he sounds miserable. Lightning can see the unshed tears in his eyes. She knows where his mind is heading and she can't afford to let him disappear into memories of losing his child, or musings about failing a girl who is a surrogate for that child. She needs him focused.

It's like a flip switches inside her. Her fears and exhaustion disappear in the face of this crisis. She is a soldier. She is trained. She can't afford to fall apart, and she needs to hold everyone else together.

"Well we need it." Lightning says. She needs to keep Sazh functioning and not backsliding into some funk. "Do you think you can make some?"

"I don't..."

"Just try." She refuses to listen to excuses. She needs to harden herself _(put your helmet on and get in the game)_, and so does everyone else.

"Alright, Soldier." Sazh almost looks grateful as he goes to work his alchemy. Fang stares after him then gives Lightning a hard, piercing look.

"Don't just sit there! Do something!" Fang says as she combs Vanille's hair back off her sweaty, pasty forehead with dirty fingernails. Lightning wants to reassure Fang, but finds the words won't come.

Can't come. The time for niceties is done.

Lightning presses two fingers to Vanille's throat, feels the thready, too-fast heartbeat.

Shock for sure. Not good.

"What do you mean it won't heal?" Lightning asks. Vanille sobs, fear and pain finally forcing their way out of her throat.

"I cast my strongest spells and it just...doesn't help." Lightning considers possibilities, tears through her memories for her basic first aid training. Deep burns destroy tissue, blood vessels and nerves. The lack of pain is a sign of serious damage. The lack of healing means that the skin inside the burn is dead.

Damn it!

Hope sits down cross-legged on the ground by Vanille's head, fingers twitching to reach out and comfort her. She can sense him gathering his magic to him and she slaps his hand away from Vanille.

"Hey!"

"Not yet Hope."

"But..."

"You might make it worse." Hope looks wounded at the suggestion. "This burn is severe. The skin is charred. Some of it's dead." Lightning looks at the char and tries to figure out how they're going to do this exactly. "We need to clean that away. We can't heal dead tissue."

"You healed the Dead Man over there alright," Fang snaps.

Lightning feels her face heat and her teeth grind at Fang's use of Snow's new and hated nickname. She exhales through her clenched teeth, determined not to answer Fang's fear laced anger with her own.

"I don't know how I did that, and I don't have any idea if I can do it again." Lightning gives Fang a hard look. "The last time almost killed ALL of us."

"Why is Vanille not worth that risk?" The question startles Lightning. She can feel her mouth hanging open.

"Fang!" Vanille snaps, though she looks like she's flagging. Fang catches Vanille before her head hits the ground. "Lightning's right."

"Vanille?" Fang cries as the girl loses her battle with unconsciousness. Lightning jams two fingers into Vanille's carotid artery again. Vanille's skin is clammy, her pulse is erratic.

"Shock. We need to work and she needs to stay out."

"Stay out? What do you want to do to her?"

"We need to clean out these burns and it's going to hurt like hell. I need a sleep spell."

"She's already unconscious," Fang argues.

"You really want her to wake up while I cut out chunks of dead skin?" Lightning pulls out the blade Serah gave her and sets to work sterilizing it.

"If you think I'm going to let you butcher Vanille, you've gone completely round the bend." Lightning smirks at the underlying threat in Fang's tone. She wonders if she'll have to shove this sterilized blade into Fang's throat before she can fix Vanille's burn.

She'll worry later that the idea of doing it is almost pleasing. A big part of her revels in violence. She knows that that pleasure is not the sole dominion of the monster growing within her. Perhaps one day she'll come to terms with that fact.

Lightning holds up the sterilized blade, smiles at the sweet curve.

Or not. Whatever.

"You really going to stop me?" _Think you can?_ "You want her to die of an infection and rot here? I thought she was your friend." Lightning looks around. "I suppose the scavengers will thank us."

Fang looks like she's ready to tear Lightning's throat out. She said it to shock and make a point, but the checked violence in Fang's gaze sets her on edge. Something starts buzzing in Lightning's head, tingles in her brand. She feels her fingers tighten around the knife.

If it's time to dance – and part of her acknowledges that it is well passed time – she's ready.

"Wait!" Hope yells. "Fang, Light's right." He's trying to placate, to stop the imminent violence crackling in the air now. "Vanille taught me about magic and healing. When she patched up Lightning's arm, she told me that the more thoroughly a wound is cleaned and repaired, the better the magic can heal it. That's why she cleaned and stitched it before casting spells." He gives Fang a pleading look. "I know what I'm doing."

Fang narrows her eyes at Hope before nodding once. She casts a wary look at the smiling blade in Lightning's hand before saying, "Right, then. What do we do?"

* * *

Cleaning Vanille's burn is a horrible experience, and it forces the emerging monster back into hibernation. The experience reminds her too much of dreams of flaying; only now, she's the executioner. The skin more closely resembles leather, and flakes off in chunks like burnt parchment. Lightning cuts and cuts through it like she is carving a roast. Five minutes after the first cut, Snow leaves the area, unable to bear the sights, sounds or smells anymore. Fang chews through half her fingernails but watches every stroke of the blade through skin, waiting desperately for that first drop of blood to appear. Hope averts his eyes from the incised wound but otherwise remains still. Lightning would be proud of him if she weren't so horrified that she's mutilating Vanille for no reason.

Dead things don't heal.

She repeats the phrase like it's her new mantra. When she finally reaches something that bears a vague resemblance to tissue, she stops cutting and puts the knife down. She's pretty sure that the next step has something to do with maggots, but she figures that if magic can't preclude the use of insect larvae, what use is it anyway? She's so happy that the sleep spell keeps the girl unconscious through the process. She's not sure she could have done it if she had to listen to Vanille screaming.

_/Abomination...Destroyer/_

Or maybe that's just wishful thinking. When she's done cutting she pulls out bandages and medicines. No matter what, they're going to need them after the hack and slash job she's just done on Vanille's leg.

"I have an idea for a spell that might regenerate damaged tissue," Hope declares as he inspects the pit that Lighting carved and dug into Vanille's thigh. "I think...I think that's what I did with Snow back in Mah'Habara." Lightning has no idea what Hope is talking about. She figures that he's really speaking more to himself than her anyway.

"Yeah?" Fang asks, sounding hopeful "So what do you need us to do?"

"I...don't know. I'm not sure how I did it."

Lightning can understand Hope's hesitation. She knows that Hope has a crush on Vanille – perhaps more. She knows from experience that strong emotions can make magic a bit screwy. She puts her hand over Hope's, waits for him to look up at her and gives him her best reassuring smile. "Vanille trusts you."

"Yeah, that's not really helping me as much as you might think," he says with the most deadpan expression Lightning's ever seen. She can feel the tremors running through his hand, can see the fear in his eyes. "I mean, what if I screw up?"

Fang grabs Hope by the shoulder. "You won't. I know you won't."

"Because you'll kill me if I do, right?" Fang's smile is wan.

"Nah, kid. Vanille trained you. You've got oodles of talent. Vanille's got faith in you, so I've got faith in you too."

Hope beams then swallows. "Yeah, that's not helping me much either." But the look on his face belies his statement. Lightning can see that he's ready.

"Alright," he says. "Just...ready your strongest healing spell Light." He closes his eyes. He cracks one and whispers, "And wish me luck."

Lightning does as Hope suggests, touching that place inside her from where her magic seems to emanate and waits. She senses Hope's power building and growing as he gathers it to him like wool. She watches as a faint aura of light surrounds him and gets brighter and brighter until she's forced to look away.

So much power, she can taste it.

She thinks of the highways of ruin tracing the outline of her circulatory system onto her skin in red, black and gray and is terrified what this spell will do to Hope.

What it might do to them all.

She pushes her fears away. She wouldn't stop him if she could. Protecting him at the expense of Vanille will serve no purpose. Instead of worrying, she watches in awe as Hope weaves a blanket of magic around Vanille. The girl sighs and shudders once as gaping hole in her leg fills with pulsating light that dims, turns pink, dims more, turns pinker, brightens, reddens, dims, and finally fades away.

It's minutes – hours – days since Hope cast the spell.

What's left in the wake of the casting is a patchwork of peeling skin, healing skin and fresh skin. It almost looks like scales. But the hole in Vanille's leg is no more. Somewhere along the way, Hope mastered genesis: he manages to create life from nothingness.

Hope goes boneless and slumps over to the side like a broken marionette, but Fang catches him before he hits the ground. Lightning doesn't even wait for reassurance before pouring more of her own brand of healing into Vanille's wound. The spell doesn't drain her nearly as much as she expects it will, but she can see the effects on Vanille's burn immediately. The new skin is no longer a vibrant red, the peeling skin sloughs off to reveal flawless pink beneath. The whole mess looks renewed, and Lightning smiles at the knowledge that Vanille will heal.

_/Destroyer/_

Maybe so. But there's still more to her.

She wraps the healing burn with gauze bandage just as Sazh approaches with the elixir. She smiles at him and looks around. They can't stay here. The cooling carcass of the fal'Cie will draw carrion birds and scavengers, not to mention other nasties that she'd rather not deal with right now.

She looks at the bedraggled group and knows that they all need a rest. They need a safe haven.

"We need to move," she says. Fang gives her a death glare that she matches. "We need to find a safe place to camp, or do you really think sleeping downwind from a corpse is good enough?"

Fang knows she's right, but the residual anger and violence prevent her from saying so. Lightning can understand.

Fang will get over it.

Snow appears beside her with a strange bundle of sticks and material and puts it on the ground. Lightning gives him a look that she hopes conveys her confusion when he shrugs and says, "I made this so we could carry Vanille."

Lightning watches him spread the litter out on the ground with confused wonder. "You..."

"Try not to look so surprised, Sis." He looks up at her and winks. "It hurts my feelings."

"Nice job there, Dead Man." Fang says and moves aside to let Snow lift Vanille's limp body onto the litter. "You're not half bad, you know."

"Well, I have my moments." Snow smiles at her and Fang smirks back at him. "How's she doing?"

"She's good," Fang sighs. "They did good."

"Never had a doubt." Snow declares.

_You never do_, Lightning thinks.

"Wha'd I miss?" Hope slurs, blinks and sits up. He shakes his head to dispel the obvious dizziness and Lightning helps steady him when he gets to his feet. "Where're we goin?"

The words come out a slurred mess and Lightning stares at Hope with concern before deciding not to kick up a fuss right now. They're all swimming in the deep end of the water after all, and one rogue wave, or strong undertow will drown them. Trying to protect Hope from his own magic seems absurd, when his magic may be all that's protecting him from a violent death. It's a catch twenty-two and she's too exhausted to try and untangle it.

"Come on, Kid," Snow says as he lifts the litter. "Wanna help me carry your girl here?"

"She's not my girl." Hope turns the most shocking shade of scarlet that Lightning has ever seen. She turns away to hide her smile, watches as Fang rolls her eyes. She wonders for a moment where she and Fang stand when Fang gives her a small nod and pat on the shoulder.

They're okay for now.

"So, is that a no then?" Snow asks and smirks as Hope scrambles to lift Vanille's feet. Sazh shakes his head as he walks past the sleeping girl, but looks much more relieved than he did earlier. "Lead the way Fang."

Lightning takes rearguard and follows Fang onward through the unknown darkness.

* * *

The sky is clear enough to count every star. Lightning disassembles her Edged Carbine and takes her time cleaning each piece. There's something cathartic in the activity; something ordered in the expanding chaos. Sazh sits beside her on the ground and places a mug of some hot beverage on the ground beside her.

"Hell of a day."

"Hmm." Lightning grunts noncommittally.

"I brought you food," Sazh pushes a plate toward Lightning. "Been a while since you've eaten anything."

Lightning's stomach wakes up and takes notice of the offering. She tries to remember the last meal she had and really, truly cannot. It's no wonder she feels so awful!

"Thanks." She picks up a piece of...something and puts it in her mouth. She chews it, swallows and realizes that she STILL doesn't know what the hell it is.

"Don't thank me." Sazh takes a bite of his own food. "Thank the hero."

"I didn't know Snow could cook." Lightning says and pops another unidentifiable piece of...something into her mouth.

"Uh, going by this meal, I'd say he can't."

"I heard that!" Snow says as he eases himself onto the ground. "How ya doin, Sis?" Lightning shrugs. Snow surprises her by tracing a finger up the strange lines on her arms. She jerks away and scowls at him, but he ignores her as usual. "You know sis, the last time I saw marks like those on someone's arm was on a dead man."

Lightning gives Snow an even look and waits for more information. When none is forthcoming, she says, "Dead from what?"

"From electricity. Poor bastard got hit by lightning."

Lightning?

She looks at the marks again and feels truly stupid. "I don't..."

"It's called ferning." She feels her mouth hanging open. "Don't ask me what it is, but I know it happens in electrocution. You know, Sis, you keep looking at me like you're shocked I know something and I might just cry."

Sazh laughs, Snow gives her the most insincere pout she's ever seen and she feels herself blushing and smiling despite herself. She punches Snow in his arm – _hard_ – and he yelps and rubs the hurt. "You still hit like a girl."

"You really are a dumbass, aren't you Hero?" Sazh laughs and pops another piece of food into his mouth. The levity dies a hard death when Lightning traces her fingers over the strange patterns on her arms.

"But I wasn't electrocuted." Lightning denies. Burned: yeah, a little bit, though it was really more like singed. Blown off a cliff – sort of. But she's pretty sure she'd remember electrocution.

"Could have fooled me," Snow says, all traces of humor gone from his voice. He meets her eyes and the naked concern there makes her uncomfortable. "I don't know what that creepy Eidolon of yours did to you, but considering the convulsions you were having, the hand print burned onto your chest and the ferning on your arms, I'm guessing electrocution is a safe bet."

Lightning looks down at her chest and realizes that Snow is right. There is an outline of a very large hand right over her brand. She can see the outline of the tips of the ring finger, middle finger and pointer finger peek over the top of her shirt. The skin is darker, grayer.

Lightning remembers her own healing spell with Sazh; remembers visualizing the healing magic as a pool of electricity. Perhaps for Odin, it's more literal, and the healing magic all channels through the elemental. It might make sense. She definitely feels healed. The aches and pains that were all encompassing are gone. Her Eidolon channeled its magic into her in the form of electricity and managed to patch up all the broken bits inside, but at what cost? Vanille told her on that long ago night that a healer gives up a piece of him or herself with each healing spell. So if Odin gave up a piece of itself for her, what does that mean?

It goes a long way towards explaining why she felt so in sync with Odin earlier. If she's carrying a piece of her Eidolon with her now, perhaps she's lost another chunk of her humanity. Perhaps Odin pushed her even further down the path to devolution. She stares at her changing flesh, at the new highways of ruination on her body. The countdown clock is now etched onto her body in shades of gray. She swallows down the choking terror.

_Doesn't matter_, she tells herself. _Nothing to be done about it now._

Lightning finishes reassembling her weapon and stands without a word. She needs to think. She needs peace.

"Sis?"

She ignores Snow and keeps walking. She can't think with all the noise inside her and around her. Solitude is essential now. She walks until the noises of her friends are faint, until the circle of firelight is nearly invisible.

She exhales.

She holds her hand up in the faint starlight and traces the dark line that starts at the base of her thumb with the tip of a torn fingernail. The skin feels normal, if a tad bit hypersensitive. The sensation of the pad of her calloused right pointer slipping over the heel of her hand to brush across the twin veins and soft skin on the inside of her wrist gives her a slight chill.

_/Defilers/_

She runs two fingers over the strange branching lines. Ferning, Snow called it, and she can see why. The pattern is arboreal, a tattoo of the vast pathways beneath her skin. She's seen men killed in dozens of ways, but she's never seen this particular wound before. The idea that it is something human rather than monstrous is comforting. She boggles for a moment at how screwed she really is to be happy that Odin electrocuted her, and that her body still reacted in a human manner.

She follows the line of her veins until it reaches her brand only to find that that it has progressed to a terrifying point. She traces her finger over the opening eye, feels a small shock at the contact before bypassing it to examine the other arm. She traces the thumb of her left hand over shooting star scar first, then the scar over her brachial artery. The skin around the scars is turning gray, the color spreading outwards like a bruise...or an infection. She remembers what Fang said about shocks accelerating the process. Each one of these marks is pushing her closer to transformation; each mark on her body a sign of failure.

Each scar a sign of victory.

_/Traitors/_

She is alive, she reminds herself, where every challenger is dead. Certainly her enemies have left their marks upon her body, but the marks she left upon them were final. And none of those victories felt as sweet as today's.

_/Destroyer/_

And none of them felt as wrong either. Something about destroying the fal'Cie felt more like a tragedy than a triumph.

_/Abominations/_

She keeps getting stuck on that word. Each time her brain repeats it, it calls to mind the recent mutations on her body. She can't help but think that Dahaka was right: she is an abomination. The fal'Cie created them and set them on this path of destruction. Why then would Dahaka call them abominations and try to destroy them? Something about the entire thing is wrong.

"Something up, Soldier?"

Her Edged Carbine is out and ready before she has a chance to stifle her reaction. To his credit, Sazh doesn't flinch. She's not sure how long he's been standing there, but she's positive he didn't just approach.

"You shouldn't sneak up on me." She holsters her weapon in one smooth move before unfurling her grasping fingers from it.

"I wasn't sneaking. You're just distracted," Sazh supplies.

The accusation stings for all that it's correct. "I'm just thinking."

"I could tell by the smell of burning," he chuckles and comes to stand beside her. She rolls her eyes.

"Ha ha."

"You're a tough audience today, so something's bothering you." He's been paying very close attention to her apparently. She's not sure she likes the idea. "Wanna share?" Lightning casts a wary look at Sazh, considering.

_/I do trust all of you./_

"I'm just trying to figure out what happened today."

"Well, call me crazy, but I think today...we kicked a little fal'Cie ass." Sazh gives her a toothy grin and she can't help but smile back at him.

"Yeah." She agrees, and her smile melts away.

"So what's the problem. Cause I was under the impression that that was a good thing. You know, seeing as how the alternative was dying and everything."

"Living is a good thing." Living another day is always a good thing, especially since the likelihood of death seems to be increasing at exponential rates. But there's something about the entire thing that bugs her. How can she explain something to him when she can't explain it to herself? "But I can't figure out why."

"Why we beat it?" Sazh asks. He doesn't wait for her response before following up with, "Because we're bad ass." She smiles and shakes her head. "You saying we're not?"

"No. I mean, I can't figure out why Dahaka attacked us at all." He looks stumped and she realizes she needs to be clearer.

"The fal'Cie are our enemy. Isn't that a good enough reason." That's what she'd always thought but it's not that simple.

"They're not really though, are they?"

"I don't follow you, Soldier. The fal'Cie caused all this misery for us. The way I see it, they're the enemy."

True. But...

"The Pulse fal'Cie made us what we are," she says. Saying it aloud actually helps. "We're Pulse l'Cie, right?"

"Yeah." He grunts. She can tell he's on the track but he's not quite there yet.

" So, why would a Pulse fal'Cie attack us? What's the point?"

Sazh looks stumped for a moment before looking up toward Cocoon, then back toward the camp. Then up toward Cocoon again. She knows that look. Sazh is making connections, reaching conclusions. "You have a theory," she says. "What is it?"

"It's not a theory yet. More like...a hunch. I need to go back through that book." Sazh turns around to walk away.

"Sazh!" Lightning snaps. She has her own ideas and she wants to know if they're on the same track here. The truth is, she's afraid of the truth. "Just...tell me what you're thinking. " Sazh scowls at her. "Please?"

A minute of silence passes. Then another, and Lightning is convinced that Sazh is going to ignore her request. Finally he speaks.

"I'm thinking that maybe the Pulse fal'Cie don't want this destruction." He looks back up at Cocoon. "Maybe Dahaka was trying to stop us from completing our focus. Stop us from destroying Cocoon and humanity."

"You think Dahaka was protecting Cocoon?" Lightning isn't sure why the idea is so horrifying. "From us?"

Sazh shrugs. "I don't know. I guess it might make sense. Maybe not all the fal'Cie are looking to call back that wayward Maker."

Maybe...

"I can't figure any other reason why it might have attacked us. Can you?"

Lightning's head spins at the implications. It's worse than her worst fears. It seems that the web of lies in which they are ensnared is more tangled than she imagined, and that the world and this war have as many shades of gray as her body.

"So what do we do now?" She asks. "I mean...if your hunch is right, then we just killed a potential ally."

How did things get this screwed?

"Now, now Soldier. Don't exaggerate. That fal'Cie wasn't ever going to be our ally." Sazh walks over to her and puts his arm around her. "Do you think it was going to stop and take the time to get to know us?" She huffs a laugh. "It attacked us, we defended ourselves. The end."

"Does that make you feel better Sazh?"

Sazh considers the question for a moment before saying, "No. But then again, killing of any sort doesn't sit well with me." Lightning flinches. "But I sure as hell prefer it to dying, so I'm not going to beat myself up over it, or shed any tears. And you shouldn't either, Soldier."

Simple.

"That fal'Cie gave us no choice. It was kill or be killed. The Hero may not be a genius, but he's right about this." She shakes her head.

Snow never catches a break.

"But what if it had answers." And that's the real problem for her. "We came to this world looking for answers and we may have just destroyed our best chance at getting them."

Sazh plucks his sleeping chicobo from his hair and pets it. The bird coos and puffs up in happy surprise.

"We'll just have to find them somewhere else is all," Sazh declares. "We've got the book. I have a feeling that damn broken tower where that big bastard attacked from might be just the place."

"Why?"

"Because I think it was trying to keep us away from there too."

Lightning stares at Sazh for a moment, watches the chicobo trill and coo with bliss and wonders just what nightmares lurk inside the broken Tower on the horizon; figures it can't be worse than what they've already faced.

She shakes her head at her own thoughts and wonders if she's really has lost her mind completely.

"I guess we've got no choice."

* * *

TBC...

I wasn't really sure about this chapter. I blame Vanille and her attempt to renegotiate her part in this story in a bid for more time. I considered just killing her off (like all the networks do when actors get uppity), but I figured that Fang might kill me in my sleep.

The lack of sense and explanation surrounding Dahaka's attack in the game has bugged me for a while now. Lucky for me, Evolution and the AU-verse gave me the opportunity to fill in what I saw as a glaring plot hole.  
For all of you rolling your eyes at the prospect of having to relive the incredibly irritating events in Taejin's Tower, I can only say that I hope you find the experience less annoying now. I always thought that Taejin's Tower would have been a great place for some real mystery and RPG style puzzles.

Comments? Questions?


	28. Lost Violent Souls

One Year Later and I haven't finished this monster yet. I still don't own anything but a car from the last century, a computer that is probably obsolete, and way too many video games and game consoles.  
This chapter is around 30 pages so get yourself a snack and beverage. I know many of you were unhappy with the decision to come to the tower, but I actually planned this out long before I played Taejin's Tower in the game. Which means I've been planning much of this particular set of events for nearly a year.

* * *

"Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold. "  
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Illusion is the dust the devil throws in the eyes of the foolish."  
**-**Minna Thomas Antrim

–Lost Violent Souls–

The trek to Taejin's tower is long and arduous, but mercifully uneventful. They spend two nights hunting and gathering, camping and recuperating. They are a merry band of broken misfits, navigating the unblazed trails of Gran Pulse at an almost leisurely pace in deference to exhaustion and injury. Lightning feels better than she has in weeks since Odin worked that painful spell on her, but Snow still looks pale and unsteady. Fang is sullen, and casts surreptitious and suspicious looks at Lightning too often for comfort. And, while Vanille's leg is healing at an accelerated pace, the burning and subsequent cutting left her with a severe limp and chronic pain despite all the elixir and healing that everyone pours into her.

"It'll be alright," she assures them in her perky way, and Lightning finds herself appreciating the girl's overly positive attitude for once. Sazh looks less thrilled with the assurances and sacrifices a night of sleep to whittle a cane for her out of a sturdy tree branch. Vanille accepts it with a beaming smile and heartfelt thank you, followed swiftly by a hug that leaves Sazh blushing, stammering and just plain uncomfortable.

Lightning finds the picture amusing.

So they walk and hobble onwards, withering under an oppressive shroud of silence.

Something is broken inside them now and she's not sure what it is. The elation of victory and survival is long gone, replaced by a weariness and exhaustion that has little to do with the physical anymore.

They are all breaking under the burden of this journey.

The sight of the tower getting closer on the horizon is a beacon calling to them. It is a source of hope and fear at once and they all yearn for different things when they reach it. Fang and Vanille hope to catch the first glimpse in over five hundred years of their lost home. They know that their families are long gone and their friends long dead. Still, there's a connection to the past that can only be found wandering familiar pathways; perhaps they'll find some measure of the peace that was stolen from them by Anima and Barthandelus all those long centuries ago.

Lightning hopes for all their sakes that they don't find more sadness and tragedy even as she steels herself for it.

Snow yearns to reach the tower in order to hurdle it. He views it as merely another irritating obstacle on this epic journey through a foreign wasteland. He is angry at the anticipated waste of time. He is angry about everything lately. He just wants to get on with things and Lightning must admit that he has a valid point; there's a large part of her that concurs with his restless irritation. This journey has been far more trying than the wildest part of her brain could have concocted, with little to show for it but lingering scars on their bodies and souls. Those scars are perhaps more obvious in Snow than anyone. His usual unflappability and ubiquitous optimism are conspicuously missing. Instead of positive thinking and longwinded heroic speeches, Snow is sullen, silent, anxious and shifty; he slinks off to be alone and whispers who-knows-what to his only remaining source of solace: Serah's crystal tear. It hurts to see him so broken. He is a bare shadow of himself and Lightning finds herself missing the cocksure attitude that so aggravated her when she first met Snow.

She wonders if the man her sister loves is gone forever. The idea that she managed to let her sister down again by losing the man she loves is sickening.

Hope, on the other hand, believes that he will find knowledge of stronger spells in the tower. He prattles on and on about ancient secrets, and how they simply must exist. He is unwilling to entertain the possibility that he will not find something to help Vanille recover from her horrific injury. He longs to heal Vanille, to restore her to the strong and glittery perfection that first captivated him. That he nearly killed himself casting a spell that regenerated half her thigh muscle isn't enough for him. He wants her pain free and bubbly again, and Lightning finds she can understand the desire. Seeing Vanille stooped and pained is harder than she would have believed. All the girl's usual glitz is dimmed and the loss of that shine has darkened their whole group. Hope's desire to restore Vanille is at least as much for his own sake as it is for hers. Lightning understands that Hope just wants to be able to fix ONE thing in his otherwise shattered world, and after Fang told him about the mystery of the tower, Hope fixated on it as a place of salvation.

'Maybe the Maker put it there,' Hope whispered about the Tower one evening, and Lightning shivered at the prospect. 'If no fal'Cie made it, then what else could have put it there?' Fang just shrugged.

'That's as good an explanation as any other, I suppose,' Fang said and went right back to fussing over Vanille. But she implanted a grain of...well, **hope** in Hope's heart again, and he spent the two day march to the tower anxious and jittering like a child with 'ants in his pants', as her mother used to say.

Lightning and Sazh hope to find the answers to some of the many questions that have been raised over the past weeks on Gran Pulse. They kept their conclusions to themselves for fear that they would come to nothing anyway. Besides, what good could come of telling the others that Dahaka may have been protecting Cocoon from them when it attacked? The thought alone is depressing. It's one thing for the humans of Cocoon to be misled into believing them the enemy by a corrupt leadership pushing an agenda. For the fal'Cie to believe it too seems to offer a legitimacy that Lightning can't explain.

Are they the enemy? Is this focus really irresistible and unavoidable after all?

Has their fate really been written and sealed in branded flesh?

She stares at the broken tower on the horizon, looming like a shattered tombstone; exactly whose tombstone remains to be seen.

She hopes to have answers soon.

* * *

On the third morning, they wake to a blood red sky. Lightning stares at it and feels a horror creeping in. It looks unnatural – otherworldly. Dangerous; ominous.

Deadly.

"Good thing we're only a half a day or so from the tower," Fang comments from beside her. Lightning is surprised that Fang approached her: she hasn't spoken to her since their last near miss. The tense silence between them is unwelcome, but Lightning counts it as the cost of doing business and lets it go.

She's never been great at having friends anyway.

But it seems as if Fang is ready to mend fences and Lightning finds that she's more pleased than she would have imagined. After all, distance is probably the smarter path here since it seems more and more probable that she and Fang are going to have to dance this 'dance' after all.

Still, worrying about eventualities seems stupid; she needs to worry about now, not 'someday.' And for now, Fang is speaking to her and she needs to respond. "What do you mean?"

"Red sky at dawn, sailors be warned." Fang says cryptically as she stares at the ominous sky. She turns to Lightning, pins her with a look. She must see the confusion. Or perhaps, she intended it. "Means a storm's coming. And considering we're a stone's throw from the sea, it'll a be a doozy."

Lightning's never heard any such thing, but that's not really a shock. On Cocoon the weather is controlled by the fal'Cie. There are no real 'dawns' or 'sunsets,' as there is no sun – only Phoenix. There are no actual stars, and no storms – at least, no storms that aren't scripted and unleashed. On Cocoon, there is nothing but the fal'Cie and their will.

That truth lights a fire of hatred in her so hot she's afraid it might immolate her.

"And now that we've killed off Dahaka, there's nothing to divert the storms from the tower," Fang says, dousing the flames of rage.

"Are you saying that Dahaka controlled the weather?" That is a grim prospect indeed. How much more unpleasant might their journey be if the weather turned violent and unpredictable too?

"No," Fang says and Lightning blows out a relieved breath. "He was the guardian of the air. And the tower," Fang nods toward the monstrous structure. Guardian of the tower? Lightning feels a bit more hope creep in. If the tower requires a guardian, perhaps there really is something worthwhile inside. "Oerbans all believed that Dahaka protected us as well, since we all dwelled in the shadow of the tower."

"I'm sorry," she blurts, though what she's sorry for she can't say. She's sorry that they had to kill Dahaka, sorry that Fang's home world is an empty ruin, a shadow of its former self, sorry for the threats, the fear. Sorry that she's a monster. Fang looks surprised but doesn't ask her to clarify. She either knows what Lightning's thinking or doesn't care. Either way, it saves Lightning the pain of blurting out an explanation.

"We need to get moving if we want to reach the tower before the storm. As things stand, we're probably going to get soaked."

"Fabulous," Lightning deadpans. "I can use a shower."

Fang smirks at her. "Yeah, you sure could." Lightning shakes her head and sighs at the taunt. "To be fair, we could all stand for some washing, what with the blood and all," Fang concedes. She looks off to the horizon. "The clouds are rolling in. We best get a move on."

Lightning stares at the threatening sky for a moment before taking Fang's suggestion.

The wind starts blowing in hard uncomfortable gusts about ten minutes after they break camp, and act like whips to spur and drive them onwards towards their destination. The rain starts as they reach the actual shadow of the tower. It's more a deluge than a rain storm, opening from the sky as if someone turned a fire hose on them. Hope squawks at the frigid needles tearing into his skin and makes a break for the nearby shelter.

"Hope!" Snow yells. "Stay with the group." Hope ignores him and keeps running and Snow grumbles under his breath, "Damn kid."

"The kid's got a point," Sazh says, hair plastered to his head for the first time since Lightning's met him. It makes her wonder where the hell he's put the chocobo chick. Her eyes flicker to his pockets and she shakes her head and wonders why she would ever think about such a thing when the thought produces such uncomfortable mental images. "We gotta get out of this weather."

"Vanille can't run," Fang snaps and Lightning can see her anger percolating again. Fang is like a waking volcano these days, threatening to explode and create a crater the size of Cocoon where she stands.

"If you don't mind, Vanille," Snow says, "I'd be happy to carry you there."

Fang looks gob smacked by the charitable offer, though Lightning isn't certain why. Snow is nothing if not noble.

Annoying and irritating, but noble and chivalrous as hell.

Vanille blushes and stammers out a denial but Fang cuts her off with a "Yeah, that's a real good idea Hero."

"I'm okay Fang," Vanille argues, and won't meet Snow's eyes. "I don't want to be any trouble."

/I never told you I met Serah once/

The memory floats up like a bloated carcass, realizations emanating from it like stench.

Lightning spent the past weeks _(months) _thinking it was she who was avoiding Vanille when it seems that the truth is quite the opposite. Vanille woke up, ran from her focus for the second time in five hundred years, and Serah got branded somehow. Vanille met Serah once.

Vanille feels guilty for causing Serah's problems. She thinks this whole mess is her fault.

Two months ago, Lightning might have agreed with her. But Vanille doesn't have a mean bone in her cheerful, bubbly, amiable as hell body.

Snow pulls out one of his killer smiles. "You couldn't be any trouble if you tried." He walks over to her and says, "May I?"

_Snow's a gentleman. Who would have thought? _

_Serah_, her mind supplies. The thought of her sister leaves her colder than the pouring rain and increasing wind. She shakes her head to dispel the thought before depression can grab hold of her and drag her under.

Snow stuffs the cane into Lightning's hands and sweeps Vanille off her feet. Vanille giggles, Fang smiles, Sazh taps his foot, grumbles something about showy heroes and their nonsense, and Lightning thinks of her sister again.

Serah loved this man so much and Lightning made her cry for it. And here he is making an injured, lame woman giggle and a sullen, angry woman smile.

_I was wrong, Serah. So very wrong._

The rain somehow gets harder and more painful. Hope shouts something that gets lost in the howl of the storm. Lightning can barely see him through the pouring rain but she hears a splash as Sazh takes off at a dead run with Snow and Vanille hard on his heels. Fang puts her hand over her eyes to shield them from the rain and yells, "You coming then? I think you're showered enough already!"

Lightning can't help but agree as she races her dark haired friend for shelter.

* * *

Taejin's Tower is like nothing she's ever seen. Even shattered as it is, it is enormous and majestic.

And empty. Lightning decides that's a blessing...

"There's nothing here!" Hope cries. Snow claps him on the shoulder in his comforting gesture.

"We're only at ground level, Kid. I'm sure there's something here." Snow looks up, suspicion in his eyes.

Vanille hobbles along, uses her weapon as a crutch rather than the wooden one; she straps that one to her back. "I've never explored the tower before. It was always Dahaka's domain."

"And it would have attacked you," Hope finishes.

"No. Dahaka was more of a protector than a destroyer." Vanille explains, sounding sad. Snow scoffs but holds his tongue.

"So...why did Dahaka attack us?" Hope asks then looks at Lightning. Snow shrugs in a 'this one's all yours gesture' and walks away.

"We're not sure, Hope," Lightning explains and puts a hand on his shoulder. "That's one of the things we're here to find out."

Fang steps in. "The stories say that Dahaka let Oerbans use the Tower as an outpost once upon a time. The tower is really the last line of defense between Oerba and the rest of the world. According to legends, after the tower was broken, no one stayed here anymore. There were a few big storms we rode out in here. Storms where the sea nearly swallowed the village. Dahaka always let us come and go, though most didn't want to get too close. Legend had it that something terrible happened here, and that Dahaka was the guardian of those secrets. As long as we didn't trespass, Dahaka left us alone. If we did...well, no one tried for fear of facing Dahaka's wrath."

"So we were right then Soldier," Sazh says. "There is something in this tower."

"You think that maybe we can find out how to beat this focus?" Hope asks, sounding happy again for the first time in...Lightning can't remember how long. "Is that the idea?"

"Don't get your hopes up, kid," Snow replies. He looks up and scowls. "I, for one, could care less what secrets this tower holds. I just get want to get through it and move on already."

"If nothing else, Hero, it might give us a safe, dry place to rest," Sazh tries to reason. "I mean, it looks empty. Who knows? Maybe we'll even find a bed in here."

Lightning's whole body aches at the thought of resting in a bed for a few hours. She's never been one for pampering, but endless weeks of battling, healing, and resting on the ground have taken their toll on her body. A few hours of comfortable, dreamless sleep would be about the closest thing to heaven they could get in this hell.

"Nice idea, but not very likely." Leave it to Fang to burst everyone's bubble. "The legends are just that; there's no records that any humans ever actually lived here at all. It's all speculation. And even if there were humans living here once upon a time, those days are long over. I mean, who do you think has been changing bed linens? Dahaka didn't strike me as the domestic type."

Sazh looks up and says, "You don't make a tower this big and have nothing in it."

"I didn't say 'nothing'..."

"If there were secrets, there were guards. If there were guards, then there was an armory and a place for them to rest. Guards' quarters should be at ground level; near to their posts," Sazh says and marches off to prove his theory.

Lightning catches Fang's eye, raises an eyebrow at her and shrugs. "It's as good a place to start as any other," she says.

"Right then," Fang concedes, though Lightning imagines the idea of violating the secrets of Taejin's Tower rankles. Lightning can understand: they've seen enough of desecration. Fang's whole world is changed and now they're asking her to go against all tradition and law and poke around in forbidden places. The thought of causing Fang and Vanille pain bothers Lighting, but they came to Gran Pulse looking for answers and their road led them here. Not searching for answers is unthinkable. "On we merrily go."

The ground level of the tower is more complicated than a circle has any right to be. There are walls that seem purposeless scattered about the space that make exploration an irritating chore. Lightning assumes the maze like quality of the floor plan is an extra layer of security; a stall tactic, a barricade and a bottleneck, all to prevent swarms of attackers from flooding the ground floor of the tower. Lightning looks up and has a clear view of the second floor corridor, lining the inner circumference of the tower. Guards positioned along that wall would be able to pick off an attacking horde at their leisure. The attackers would have no place to go, and the scramble and confusion to escape death would undoubtedly lead to stampeding.

It's simple and brilliant – a marvel of military genius.

"The guard quarters and armory will be up a level," she blurts and everyone pauses to look at her. She points over their heads. "Ground level is a death trap. No soldier worth his salt would be caught down here in an attack, and anyone clever enough to design this maze would know better than to put hostages, potential recruits or weapons in the middle of it." She steps past Sazh and gives him a smile. "We need to find a way up."

Lightning presses forward and takes the lead, pausing at intersections and scanning what she can see of the upper level to figure out which staircase is the real one, and which are decoys. It takes nearly a quarter hour to find the right stairwell. By the time they make it to the next floor, Vanille is shaky and unsteady, letting her Tiger Claw take all her weight.

"Soldier, why don't you see if you can find us those sleeping quarters," Sazh says, taking Vanille by the elbow and leading her to the wall. She leans heavily on the wall, doing her best impression of a drunk holding onto the world. Sazh's brow furrows with obvious concern. "Come on Vanille. Sit here for a bit with me. My old bones can use a rest and I can use the company." Vanille gives him a wan smile as he helps her ease onto the ground. He strips off his jacket and slides it under Vanille's knee, then rummages in his pouch and comes out with a flask and some dried meats.

"You really are my very favorite, Sazh," Fang says as she glances at Lightning. "You go on. I'm going hang back here."

Hope looks torn.

"Hang out here, Kid." Snow says. "We'll be right back."

Hope frowns then nods before parking himself beside Vanille. Lightning knows that he'll try another healing spell on Vanille's leg. She hopes for both their sakes that it does some good.

Lightning watches Sazh hand a piece of dried meat to Fang and to Hope and her stomach growls in angry protest at its neglect. She ignores it, as per usual, and starts walking with Snow in tow.

* * *

"So Sis, what are you really looking for in this tower?"

"Right now?" She replies rhetorically. "I'm looking for a good place to bunk down while we're here."

"That's not what I meant and I'm pretty sure you know it." Lightning nods but says nothing. "But while we're on that subject – why the hell are we bunking down here at all?"

Lightning pauses in front of a door, but looks back over her shoulder, waiting for Snow to continue.

"We're running out of time here," Snow declares. He touches a patch of graying skin on her arm and she fights the flinch. It won't do any good to evade or avoid. "You are running out of time."

_I ran out of time a long while back _is what she doesn't say.

"Vanille is hurting. A lot. Pushing on while she's so weak won't do us much good," is what she does say, and it is the truth. "Besides," she says, turning to face him. "We need answers. We're like blind mice running in a mad scientist's maze right now."

"And what makes you think there are any answers here?" She tenses, too tired to debate despite the fact that Snow is not being argumentative.

"Nothing in particular. But this is our last, best chance," she says. She debates saying more before deciding that sharing with him can't hurt. "I'm afraid that if we just keep moving, we're playing right into Barthandelus's hands. He wanted us to come to Pulse. He sent us here. If we don't find some answers... We need answer."

Snow's whole face scrunches up, and he reaches into his coat pocket again in an unconscious gesture of insecurity and fear.

Caressing Serah's crystal tear for comfort.

"I have to know, Snow," she says and turns back towards the door. "We have to understand the past to figure out the future. I am sick being a step behind that wormy bastard."

"What if there are no answers Lightning?" Snow asks. "What then?"

"Then..." _we're screwed,_ "it doesn't matter anyway how much time we waste here. They win, and humanity is doomed." She hears him huff, senses his restless shifting but puts it from her mind as she prepares herself for whatever might lie beyond the door. She takes a breath, grabs the door knob and shoves at the heavy wood with all her might.

* * *

Nothing attacks them.

Lightning is more surprised by that fact than by the sight of dusty barracks and the smell of musty air, but only just. The theoretical guards' quarters in her mind resolves into rows of bunks and footlockers and shelves with yellowed, faded photographs. She knows that people once dwelled on Gran Pulse (Fang and Vanille are proof enough of that) but months of wandering without catching sight of another living human seems to have solidified the idea of human life on Pulse as legend and myth. The library and temple are like mausoleums to an extinct culture; they are as easily divorced in her mind from the people who built them as the Pulse warmech in the Vile Peaks. But beds, clothes and trinkets are testimony and proof of the tragedy of individual loss. Each empty bunk is a lost person; each photograph is a broken family. That they are well more than five hundred years gone doesn't lessen the tragedy for her. If anything, it somehow makes it worse. These people never got to say goodbye; never got to bury their dead. That is a nightmare to which she can intimately relate: her parents were incinerated like so much rubbish and she never even received the ashes. That particular spot is still as sore as if it all happened yesterday. The slightest jostling of that injury always makes her lash out like a wounded animal, and something about this room hits the spot with the accuracy of a sniper. This room is trapped in time and she feels a rage on behalf of these long dead people. She needs to know what happened to them; why they died. Where they went.

What killed them all.

Snow looms behind her in the doorway. She can hear him shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. She wonders for a moment what he thinks when he sees this room; if he shares her curiosity and indignation; if he has his own set of wounds that a sight like this might re-open. Snow's past is a mystery to her – one that she's never really thought about. Part of her wonders if they'll have a chance in the future to get to know one another the way families know one another. She shakes off the ridiculous thought.

She has no future.

She refocuses on the present, and the hidden past. She walks into the room and places an open palm on the dusty bedcover. She slips her hand around the edge of the bunk, notes the military corners and smiles through her sadness.

Soldiers are soldiers, it seems, no matter what banner they wave or for what cause they fight.

She traces her fingers through the dust of a footlocker and finds that her curiosity outweighs her discomfort at violating another's privacy. She lifts the lock in her hand, pulls, feels rust flake off the metal. The lock holds and she is overwhelmed with the need to know what is inside the footlocker.

She has spent her whole life believing that the people of Pulse were some sort of monsters, but all she sees here is proof of a people just like her; soldiers just like her. She has seen nothing on Pulse to indicate that the people here are any different from the ones on Cocoon.

_**Were**__ any different_, she corrects. _There are no people here anymore._

She knows what she keeps in her own footlocker; she wants more proof of the differences or similarities between herself and these people. She wants to know with every fiber of her being that she's been deceived her whole life. She needs to know that she is a fool for buying the Sanctum's stories. She needs more fuel for the furnace of her hatred. She pulls out her folding knife and slips it between the wood and metal of the latch. Five hundred years has made the wood weak and a quick flip of her wrist splinters it.

"Sis?"

She ignores Snow, unsnaps the latch and lifts the lid of the footlocker. She smells cedar and dust. There is a dog-eared book on top of folded uniforms and civvies. She lifts the top layer of clothing, spots blankets beneath; she lifts those and finds a metal box. She sits on the floor and opens the metal box and finds stacks of paper tied together with string.

Letters.

She deflates. Everything she has been taught is a lie. She's known it for a while now, but being confronted with such domestic proof hits her harder than any dream, any book or building. She looks around the room again at the rows of empty beds. At the abandoned belongings and cherished possessions. This tragedy is older than Fang's, more powerful than hers, but Lightning believes they are all connected. She climbs to her feet and lifts a picture from the shelf, sits heavily on a dusty bunk. The squeak and squeal of old metal startles her, but not so much as the feel of a bed beneath her body.

Weeks of nothing but wilderness and animals, fighting and running, made her forget the simple quiet of hearth and home. Now, confronted with something as domestic as living quarters on this empty world opens a chasm inside her.

She misses her sister.

The feeling sweeps through her and like a backdraft, extinguishes itself with its own power. She puts the picture down and stands.

These things have no right to exist in such pristine condition when the people to whom they belonged have long since turned to dust. She wants to tear this room apart piece by piece. She wants to stack all the belongings into a pile and set them ablaze.

She settles for storming out of the room, to the ledge, leaning over and staring at the maze below.

"Sis?" Snow says from behind her.

"I'm fine." None of this is fine. "I just..."

"I wasn't expecting the family pictures either." Snow says and leans backwards against the ledge beside her. He puts his elbows on it and stares upward. "I don't even know how the pictures survived."

She wonders the same thing herself before deciding it really doesn't matter. Perhaps they are here just to torment the humans who find them; perhaps they were preserved out of respect and homage to the forgotten dead. Perhaps a million things, or none – they will never know for sure. "Who knows? Maybe this whole tower is as cursed as we are."

It feels like it.

"It could be magic," Snow says after a long, heavy silence. "I mean, if that fal'Cie was protecting this tower, maybe it did it with magic."

Lightning considers Snow's point for a moment before nodding. "It makes sense I guess. That room looked like no one lived there for a year. Not hundreds, or thousands of years."

"Whatever," Snow grunts and pushes off the wall. "You know that I'm not big on looking for reasons for things Sis. I like to hit things." He thumps the handrail he's leaning on to emphasize his point. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head at him; he winks at her and curls his lip up into a sardonic smirk. "Let's go get the others. They need to see this for themselves."

Lightning nods and trails after Snow.

* * *

Lightning's eyes water and sting, words and pictures mixing together on the page before her. She rubs her tired eyes, feels the swelling and scratching indicative of too much time reading by too little light.

Not reading. That would imply she understands the language.

She's staring at the delicate pages of the scrolls and books and watching as the words all climb off the paper and start dancing around the room. Lightning drives her fingers into her eyes, watches colors and shapes dance in the darkness behind her lids, feels hard squish of her eyeballs against her fingertips followed by the squelch of moisture seeping between the lids.

After settling Vanille down and doping her up with every painkiller they had, Hope decided it was time to start searching for the answers that he was positive the ancient tower housed. Lightning followed him because she refused to take her eyes off him in this building. Just because there were no obvious fiends or animals roaming the building didn't mean that Taejin's Tower was safe. It sure as hell didn't feel safe. It felt like another tomb just waiting for them all to lay down and die already. Snow and Sazh came along because Snow was climbing the walls at the idea of 'resting' and Sazh was curious about the ancient structure and its promise of knowledge. They spent an hour wandering, made it up to the next level and finally found a room that looked like a cross between a library and an apothecary's chamber.

Hope was ecstatic. Sazh was interested. Snow looked bored. Lightning was hopeful.

Three hours later (and counting) here she sits.

And **sits. **

**And _sits._**

"This sucks," Snow stage whispers from beside her as he slams a book closed. She snorts and cracks her burning eyes to give Snow a baleful look. She knows it sucks, he doesn't need to point out the obvious to her. Or insist on making things worse. He smacks his forehead against the hardwood table, rolls it back and forth and says, "I hate research. I hate libraries when I **can** understand the language, and this stuff," he reaches forward blindly and shoves a bunch of papers, books and glass jars off the table to crash to the floor on the other side, "is gibberish and nonsense. What are we doing here?"

"Shh" Hope hisses from across the room, giving Snow a dirty look before shoving his nose back into a book. Sazh gives Lightning a smirk before shaking his head and resuming his own reading.

"This is a nightmare," Snow grumbles. "I hated studying in school." Lightning smiles and shakes her head, completely unsurprised by the blurted admission. "I hated it so much that I never did it. **Ever.** I can't believe I'm doing it in the middle of the end of the world."

Lightning bites down on her lips and chokes down the laugh. "Wow. I didn't think you could even read, Snow."

"Ha ha. You're hilarious, Sis. Really." Snow doesn't even look up at her. He just thumps his forehead even harder against the table. The crack of his skull against the furniture makes her wince. "I hate reading."

"I guess if Heroes don't make plans, they don't need to read either," Lightning returns. His mouth twists into a grimace, but he keeps his eyes closed and his forehead pressed against the wood.

"Damn straight we don't," Snow returns, ignoring her sarcasm entirely. She'll never admit it, but Snow has a point. She's pretty sick of staring at foreign languages in old books. She's sick of the smell of books; she's sick of old dust up her nose and in her eyes. She's not as dead against reading as Snow seems to be, but she's better suited to utilizing Intel than she is at gathering it. She's a woman of action and all this sitting and sneezing and staring chafes and rubs against her grain.

Her knee is bouncing up and down in an effort to release some of her pent up energy. She makes a conscious effort to stop it.

"I don't know what I'm doing here," Snow snaps and smacks his head against the table again. She winces again at the painful, hollow sound, wonders if he's going to have a huge bruise on his forehead by the time he's done. Or a concussion. Maybe he's trying to knock himself unconscious. She wouldn't really blame him.

If he doesn't stop bitching, she may just oblige him by knocking him out.

"I should have stayed behind with Fang and Vanille," Snow declares, lifting his head off the desk. "At least napping is useful."

"Why did you come?" He rolls his eyes at her as if the answer should be obvious. She holds his gaze.

It doesn't take long for her to decide that it is.

"I can't stand this anymore." Snow twists his fingers together, tugs on his ear, rolls his neck back and forth with a loud snap, grinds his teeth together so hard she wonders if he's breaking them, and just generally acts like an enormous fidget. She watches him twitch and jerk before turning back towards her indecipherable scroll.

"I feel like I've spent my entire life on this empty planet while who knows what is happening back home." Snow stands up so fast he knocks his chair out from under him. It clatters to the ground and echoes in the empty room. Hope gives Snow a dirty look; Snow sees Hope's 'look' and raises him a flip off. Hope turns scarlet but doesn't continue the silent argument. Snow looks around the room, kicks the chair out of his way hard enough to crack the wood and says, "I need to get out of here; do something. Whatever. See ya later, Sis."

Lightning watches Snow go, catches a few of his grumbles as he leaves the room and finds herself agreeing with him more than she ever thought possible. She knows they need to figure things out, but tearing through an entire library filled with books and scrolls and pages of dead languages is not really her bag either. Still, coming here and searching was her idea so it's only right that she helps.

Right?

Right.

_Ugh! This really does suck!_ She stares at the door and contemplates making a break for it. She crosses her legs, spots the gray skin on her leg and touches it; picks at it. She moves on to her arm, traces the strange arboreal pattern up the length of her arms, rubs a thumb over the graying skin of her forearm.

She wonders how much time she has left and if sitting here 'reading' things she can't understand anyway is really the best use of that time.

She stands up and feels the cramp in her lower back from sitting too long on a hard chair. Her ass is numb, and her upper thighs tingle. It's a strange feeling and one that she sure as hell isn't used to. She's used to injuries and battle; eyestrain and a numb ass from sitting around are not job hazards for a soldier.

She paces and stares at the cloudy glass bottles on the shelves. Some are empty, but some still contain colored liquids within them. She wonders for a moment why the liquids haven't evaporated before deciding that their presence is more proof of Snow's 'magical barrier' theory.

_Maybe. Who cares?_

Lightning sits on a table and crosses her legs and stares at patchwork on her body. Her eyes play tricks on her and the patches alternately grow and shrink as she stares at them. Her mind slows, quiets, and she zones out—

—"You know, Light," Hope startles her from her daze with the non sequitur, "Maybe I can fix it."

Lightning blinks at him as she tries to figure out what he means. She looks around at the bottles on the shelves, at the papers scattered about the room and comes up blank. She furrows her brow and does her best to convey her confusion. "Fix what?"

Hope walks over and touches the changing skin on her arm. She flinches away as if his fingers burn. "Don't."

"I mean...Vanille's leg was ruined and I fixed it. And this scroll has a formula for an even stronger elixir. Maybe I can," she shakes her head before he finishes the thought, "heal the damage."

"You can't," she declares, stands and pushes past him.

"You don't know that," Hope snaps and trails after her.

"I do," she declares. She is not having this conversation. There are things that she still hasn't told Hope; things about magic and its consequences. Things that she never wants to discuss with him because she's tired of shattering Hope's...hopes.

"You can't really know it," Hope declares and folds his arms. "You're just being difficult."

He's getting to be a real mouthy little bastard. She raises her eyebrow at him and watches him pale with a hint of satisfaction. "It's not damage, Hope. It's transformation."

She turns to walk away again. She needs to get out of here. She hates talking about the transformation she's experiencing, though she knows it is the pink behemoth in the room. Still, there's no use speaking of it since there's nothing to be done about it. She's turning into a monster in a very literal way. She doesn't see the point in making it a conversation point. She mumbles: "There' s nothing to heal."

"So then why is all concentrated near your scars?"

Good question. She can tell by the smug look on Hope's face that he assumes she's never considered this fact.

He really is getting too smarmy for his own good. Now she remembers why she spent half her teenage years wanting to pummel Serah into the dirt. Teenagers can be real know-it-alls.

"The best answer I can come up with is that my transforming body isn't healing in a human way anymore." Hope crosses his arm. She huffs, and lifts her arms, points at the gray skin. "This is what I am. The rest of my body just hasn't caught up yet."

"You don't know that!"

"Repeating that isn't going to make it the truth, Hope," she snaps. Hope's lip trembles and she closes her eyes, counts to ten and tries again. She's no good at this whole sensitivity thing. She never has been, and now that she's turning into a monster, her people skills are circling the drain.

She hates hurting her friends. She hates seeing Hope frightened most of all. He's just a kid and he's lost so much already. She doesn't want to be one more thing he loses, and she knows she's going to be.

_Damn it!_

"Fang told us that 'shocks' can accelerate the transformation. What do you think these injuries are? Each one of these areas of graying skin was a potential mortal wound." She traces her finger over the shooting star first. "This one tore through half the blood vessels in my arm." She taps her leg below the knee. "This one is where my foot was crushed. Crushed, Hope! Not broken. Crushed." She traces her finger down the scar over her brachial artery. "A human being can bleed out in under one minute from a tear in this artery."

Hope turns away from her and she watches him wipe the back of his hand across his eyes. Hurting him sets off an equal pain in her chest, but he needs to know the truth.

"Maybe..."

"I'm not letting you do it. Do you understand?"

"Letting me?" He turns and gives her his narrow eyed bitch face. _Crap!_ She misspoke, and now she's dealing with the' You're Not the Boss of Me' attitude.

"Even if it could work, the magic is hurting you. I can see it."

"I feel fine," Hope insists and the last drop of her patience disappears.

"And that's the way it's going to stay!"

"You don't get to make decisions for me!"

"You're right. I don't. But I do get to make them for me. I say it's not worth the risk."

"I think it could..."

"It could make it worse!" She shouts at him and watches him go stark white. She lowers her voice and tries again.

_Truth time, Lightning. You knew it was coming. Time to show your cards._ "Magic makes it worse. At least, Vanille thinks that magic makes it worse."

"But..."

"It's why I wouldn't let you heal me all those times."

"So..."

"Healing me is accelerating it for you for sure, but there's a real good chance that all the magic that I've worked and that's been cast on me, is making this go faster. And I'm not taking any more chances."

She can't look at him. There are tears rolling down his flushed cheeks. He sniffles and hiccoughs, and she turns around and walks out of the room. She never wanted to destroy the last of his hopes, but she can't let him operate under the delusion that there's any way to save her from this fate other than completing their focus.

If that would even work.

She wanders the darkening corridors of the tower, boots whispering against the ancient stone as she passes. She walks to burn out her own frustration; she walks to drown out the sound of Hope's broken cries. She walks until her body is as tired as her mind, and she sits presses her head back against the wall and rests, trying to calm the chaos in her mind.

* * *

Something pulls her, calls to her. She hears voices in the darkness. Whispers around her, inside her. Familiar voices, strange voices. She can't ignore them, their insistence, their pull. The harder she tries, the stronger the pull.

She gives up the fight. It's so easy to abandon and just...follow.

She follows them into sleep, _into corridors, through the locked doors; through the dark miasma into the pitch black room._

_Into another world, a dream world, full of shadow and light. A black and white world of magic and despair._

_Follows them to the feet of the ancient occupants of Taejin's Tower, where they drop her like a wet ragdoll stitched together with blood and tissue..._

_She twists on a precipice. She sways to and fro in an unfelt breeze. She dreams..._

_She wants to stay and float and drift, but—_

* * *

—There's an itch she can't reach nagging at her, irritating her. She twitches to reach it, but can't. It keeps getting worse as she goes. She can't even figure out where it is; she just knows there's a nuisance driving her berserk. Her fingers tingle, her lips burn. Her ears are ringing. She shakes her head, blinks, opens her eyes and waits for something to make sense again.

It takes a moment for her mind to pair the shapes and textures she sees with the correct names and designations. It's possibly the most terrifying moment of her life as she stands clueless , staring at nameless things, knowing that she should know what they are but unable to place them. The circuit finally connects and the names of everything match up with the objects in her view. Stone. Door. Wall. Dark. It's another minute before the fear abates.

The next second, she realizes that she is not where she should be.

She glances around with far more caution than usual.

She has no idea where she is at all. She has no idea how she got here.

_/whispers enticing, drawing her forward, driving her onward/_

She shivers and gropes for her weapon, terrified that she's lost it in her latest lapse. Her fingers close around the hilt and she sighs and draws the weapon. Just holding it makes her feel better – stronger – and she turns to confront her new challenge.

The room is dark, and feels much smaller than it looks. She knows the feeling makes no sense, but she no longer expects her feelings to be based in any sort of logic. Her instincts are far sharper than her reason by now; though her senses all tell her she is alone in this strange, she knows with every cell in her body that she is not.

Something is watching her.

"Who's there?" She asks the room. Silence answers her and she wonders if she's finally crossed over into complete lunacy.

"Who's there?" she shouts, and this time the room shouts back in triplicate.

**"DEFILER—"  
"TRAITOR—"  
"—DESTROYER"**

The sound drives her to her knees, clogs her ears and sets them screaming like sirens. She feels tears pour from her eyes, tastes blood pouring from her nose. She covers both ears with her hands, uncaring that she kneels on the ground, disarmed by nothing more than words.

**"ABOMINATION"** the three voices shout at once, sounds blurring and overlapping so violently she can practically see the shockwaves.

"Why have you come, traitor?" one voice asks. She swallows to try and unblock her ears, pulls her hands away. She hears whispers between the fired questions and demands. "Have you come to face judgment?"

_/it bleeds/_

"Who is your master?"

_/it reeks/_

**"ANSWER!" **The word is like a club to the head. It makes her dizzy, and blurry, and very nearly steals all consciousness.

_/it offends/_

"Who set you on this path?" She feels hands grabbing at her in the darkness. Fingers pinch, and claws scratch. She feels mouths nipping at her, biting her. Tearing at her flesh with razor fangs. She tries to escape but she cannot move. She's pinned, bound. Held by her limbs by binds that pull slowly at her, threatening to quarter her. "Answer! Who set you on this path? Who sent you to the Tower?"

"I set myself on this path!" She tries to shout. Perhaps she succeeds but the world is gray and she is deaf. Her body is a throbbing wound. Her mind is peeling apart like an onion. She can't hear herself over the din.

"Lie_Lies_Lying**LIAR**"

_**"Speak!"**_ Something disengages from the wall and approaches her. She stares up at the stone monstrosity and tastes fresh blood pour from her nose over her lips, into her mouth, over her tongue. "_Branded – _Who – _You are – _**Why – **Branded – **Here – Now – **_Abomination_!"

The words are like an apple corer through her head; she feels the blood pouring from her nose, her head, her brain. She has no idea what the voices are asking, what information they are demanding. The intense agony makes problem solving impossible.

"Who is your master, slave?"

That one she understands enough to feel outraged.

"I have no master," she declares.

**"You are branded,"** the three voices speak. _"You are cattle. You are property – without will.__**"**_ She shakes her head, watches blood pour onto the floor beneath her. It feels like they've driven their fingers into her brain by poking through the roof of her mouth. There's a feeling of wriggling and squirming, burrowing and pulling as if they are trying to pull the contents of her body out through her mouth. **"You are fal'Cie slave!"**

She is incensed is what she is. She couples that anger with her pride and pulls herself to her feet. She doesn't like being accused and accosted, prodded and poked. She is tired of creatures with more power trying to grind her into the dirt.

_/Outcast/  
/Blight/  
/Pestilence/_

"You are a desecration of the song."  
"Disharmonious, cacophonous in our ears."  
"A canker on all creation."

The voices overlap, intonation even and matter of fact as they berate her.

"I didn't choose to be a l'Cie," she declares, realizing how childish it sounds. She doesn't owe these things any explanation. Her hand aches for her weapon. She wants to drive her Edged Carbine into the stone before her, send enough magic through the blade to turn them into dust.

The whispers overlap and crescendo.

_/No purpose/  
/No meaning/  
/No matter/_

"It was Anima who branded me," she says over the whispering and they cease. "If that's what you bastards are asking."

"Anima," one voice whispers while another says, "Traitor."

"Anima betrayed Her,  
betrayed us,  
betrayed the design."

They speak to her and at her. Her head spins from their words. She needs to understand what they mean. How is Anima a traitor; who did it betray? She has suspicions but she needs confirmation. She can't afford to be wrong now. She's not going to get a second chance at this one.

"We destroyed Anima for branding us. We destroyed your traitor." The voices whisper and she peers into the darkness. She's taking a big chance admitting to killing a fal'Cie. She doesn't know what she faces, but she knows it, or they, or whatever-the-hell, can kill her. The knowledge annoys her. The throbbing pain behind her eyes tells her that they can do it without touching her. She's tired of threats; sick of watching her step. She longs to attack and destroy.

She wonders if that desire is hers, or if it belongs to the monster she is becoming. She decides it really doesn't matter as she says, "We wish to break our chains and fight. We came here seeking a path to freedom."

"Branded," a voice supplies unhelpfully. "No freedom but death for abominations. You are unclean and unintended."

The next says, "You have no place in this world and no place in the next. You are doomed and forever hidden from Her sight."

The final one says, "It is why you are cursed to eternity as crystal, and monster and rock. No peace for l'Cie."

_/Damned/  
/Cursed/  
/Condemned/_

Despite her complete lack of surprise, Lightning is devastated. All the stories of 'eternal life' as a crystal are so much garbage. Serah is not 'at peace.' She is like a bug trapped in amber, held for eternity in a crystal shell because there is no place for her in the afterlife. It is as Lightning always suspected. It is her worst fear materialized and confirmed. And if she can't find a solution, the same fate awaits the rest of her friends – her family. She rubs her forehead, presses her thumb and forefinger into her eyes. She takes two seconds to feel the disappointment before she shoves it aside and packs it away.

She can't give up hope yet. As long as she's in control of herself, she will search for a way to reverse this curse and fix what these soulless things have done to them all.

"Okay," she says, unsure if she's really conceding or just placating the angry gods around her. "But...we must find a way to stop Barthandelus."

_**"BARTHANDELUS!"**_ She barely feels the pain of the shout through her numb horror. She does feel the gush of the next gout of blood.

_/Deceiver/  
/Defiler/  
/Debaser/_

"Barthandelus seeks to destroy Cocoon. To make a sacrifice of all the humans in Cocoon." There's more whispering but she shouts right over it. "My friends and I have come to Pulse to find a way to stop him, but we don't know how."

_/How?/  
/Know?/  
/A Way?/_

"We're running out of time," she says and touches her brand. She feels the power there, senses Odin shifting and waking wherever it sleeps. She wonders what would happen if she called to the Eidolon. She wonders if it would help her, or if these ancient gods would hold sway. She has no real knowledge of the Eidolons and their connections to the l'Cie; she's not certain that Odin's loyalty to her would hold in the face of ancient power. She decides that she doesn't want to find out, so she does her best to quell the need for aid. She feels the Eidolon's gaze wander from her and she relaxes.

She waits for a response for an eternity.

She has the sudden irrational urge to tap her foot and make 'hurry up' gestures with her hands.

**"Time," **is all that is said before silence falls again.

The silence sucks all the air from the room. Lightning holds her breath and waits for a judgment and sentence.

"Time is an enemy."  
"Fear is a catalyst"  
"Terror transforms through time..."

"What?"

"It doesn't understand."  
"It never understands."  
"Hear, it does, but it listens not."

"I'm listening but you aren't saying anything!" She shouts.

"Insolent."  
"Impudent."  
"Innocent," the final one declares and follows up with, "Let not your fears control you, or give life to them you will. Rewrite your flesh and bone and blood..."

The words make no sense. She shakes her head but the first voice declares, "It doesn't understand."

"Get it gone," the second says as the third declares, "It will understand. Clever and wily it is. Time is all it needs."

"Time it does not have," the second voice argues.

"That's what I said," Lightning shouts and silence falls over the room again. She waits for punishment with a defiant heart.

_Screw these things!_

"Ragnarok," they say and the white noise of whispers continues. She waits for more information but it seems as if none is forthcoming.

"I don't understand," she says and the subtle whispers get louder, angrier. She gets angry right back and yells over the rising din. "Ragnarok is going to destroy Cocoon!"

_Foolish_, the first says.  
_Ignorant_, the second says.  
_Child_, the third declares.

"Ragnarok is Her gift to humans." The answer makes no sense. She shakes her head. They continue, "Ragnarok, the Doom."

"Ragnarok. Destroyer."

"Ragnarok. The bane of fal'Cie. The one thing they can never control. Ragnarok alone is salvation."

"But..."

**"No QUESTIONS!"**

"...BECOMING RAGNAROK IS MY FOCUS," she shouts right back at them. "Summoning Ragnarok is Barthandelus's goal. He wants Ragnarok to destroy Cocoon."

More silence.

_/Clever, Clever/  
/Devious/  
/Wicked Barthandelus/_

"Unchanging is Barthandelus. Same are the tricks he plays on humans," says the one before her.

"Too short are your lives. Humans..." another whispers.

"Too brief. Learn nothing from the past," the last one laments.

"We don't know anything about what's happened in the past!" she argues. "There are no people left on this world..."

_/extinction/  
/destruction/  
/desolation/_

"...And on Cocoon..."

_**Hubris and blasphemy!**_

"On Cocoon everything we've been told are lies. We're here for answers. If you're against Barthandelus, won't you help us?"

_/Unnatural/  
/Offensive/  
/Intriguing.../_

The last word hangs and twists; Lightning wonders if that was the final word on the matter, if she just wasted her breath and time trying to reason with these beings.

_**"Agreed."**_

She hears an echoing click and light pours into the room. Her eyes water and she squints.

"Seek your answers in the forbidden places..."  
"Go forever from our sight, outcast thing..."  
"May the Goddess guide you in your journey, and grant you the wisdom to let go your fear."

Lightning doesn't need any more invitation to take her leave. She finds these...things as offensive as they find her. She walks toward the unknown eagerly.

* * *

Lightning feels dizzy and ill as she walks toward the light. Her battle with the three strange statues has left her battered without battle. She wants nothing more than to put space between herself and the power in the dark room. She steps up to the threshold, turns back and sees the three bizarre statues looming in the room behind her. Their faces are unchanging, but the disapproval and disgust rolls off them in waves. She looks at her hands and sees the blood coating them and shakes her head.

She feels as if she's drowning in a lake of her own blood.

She presses the door open, forces against centuries of dust and rust until the hinges scream and squeal and reveal the room beyond. The air is thick with must and Lightning coughs. She steps in, hears her footfalls echo in the vast room, watches dust motes twist and twirl in the slanted sunlight.

The room is huge and empty but for a single crystal in the center. The crystal scatters the light, sprinkles rainbows across the walls of the room like a disco ball. Lightning approaches it slowly, feels something heavy settle in her gut as she reaches it.

Reaches her.

It's a weeping woman, hunched on her knees for all eternity, the truest misery Lightning's ever seen captured in ironic beauty. Lightning kneels before her, and stares. There's something familiar about her, though Lightning's never seen her before.

Except...

Lightning reaches out and touches the crystal and drowns.

_She stares at Cocoon shining overhead like a shimmering gem in the sky. She never feared the strange orb, never cast aspersions at it, or suspicions towards it. It was a gift from the gods, given to the loyal and faithful, and it was not the place of any human to question the will of the gods._

_When the plagues came she did her best to keep control. It was her duty in her husband's absence to keep the people calm. But illness bred death; and death brought more illness in a vicious cycle. Chaos was unavoidable as food was infected, as bodies were burned. It was total anarchy in an unbelievably short time, and soon the mobs were burning people before they died._

_Preemptive strikes, they said. _

_It is a nice euphemism for cold-blooded murder. It makes the screams of the dying and smells of burning flesh almost bearable._

_Almost... _

_When the old man comes to her whispering of vengeance, laying blame for all the deaths of all her people at the feet of Cocoon and offers her a chance to redress the wrongs done, she accepts without hesitation. He smells of flowers and sanctity. The air tastes clean around him for the first time in weeks. She kisses his hands and accepts his offer to become vengeance incarnate. _

_The pain of the branding is nothing compared to the pain of her people. Her husband is gone. Her home is burned. Her city is a charred ruin. She has nothing left but the child within her and she refuses to bring it into a dying world. The old man offers her the opportunity to be a peace bringer._

There's a peace that can only be found only on the other side of war_, the wizened man whispers with a silver tongue and the words make a demented sort of sense. _This is only the beginning. Do you want to see their next move?

_She is horrified at the prospect._

Become. _She doesn't understand the instruction, but she can feel a shifting taking place beneath her skin. _You must sacrifice to prove your worth.

_Sacrifice? But she has nothing. Everything she's ever had is turned to ash. The old man speaks as if he can read her mind. _Really? _He lays his hands over her round belly and her child kicks hard._

_"No!" she refuses. _

Peace is not worth one life?_ Perhaps the cruel words are logical but logic holds no sway over a mother. She would sacrifice the world for her child if need be, but never the other way._

Become, and perhaps he'll live to draw his first breath. Refuse and he'll rot inside your decaying body. _The old man's kind face transforms into something she can't face. There are things squirming beneath his flesh now. She's seen movement like this in the bloated corpses laying about her rotting city. He smiles and his teeth are jagged and pointed, his mouth squirming with insects. She gasps and smells the fetid rot of him. The reality of his stench. She screams, and continues screaming when he lays his bony hand over her brand._

_The pain is exquisite. It's like being turned inside out and when she wakes on the floor she feels changed. Her body is heavy, lethargic. She lifts her hands and sees the fingers of a monster before her, gray and clawed._

Come child, _the old man says, and lifts her to her grotesque feet. _A trifle for salvation. _He lifts her chin towards the sky, directs it towards the enemy overhead._

_She feels the changes rattling through her again, snapping her tendons like rubber bands and remaking her from the elements. The life that she once felt growing nestled inside her is gone. In its place is a burning hatred and need to destroy like she's never felt before. She screams, and thrashes, feels things crumble around her and is satisfied, hears screaming and is glad._

_She is Death, and she will spread her gift across the world._

"SIS!" Snow shouts into her face. She jerks away from the sound. "Sis?" he whispers. She looks around to get her bearings, feels the hard floor beneath her and Snow's big hands cupping her face. She reaches up in a sloppy uncoordinated manner to brush him off, but he holds fast, and wipes his thumb across her cheek.

"You back?"

Is she? There's a sharp pain pressing behind her eyes with an insistent throb, pressing against the near visible fracture lines in her psyche to shatter her again. She feels something crawling beneath her skin, chewing away at her mind piece by piece.

She feels the bubbling in her blood, the vibrations in her muscles. She feels the grief like acid eroding what's left of her strength.

But...she is back. She is Lightning. She is not this ruined, weeping woman, no matter how much of her believes it.

/No parents/

No matter how broken she feels.

/No sister/

The hole through her heart is hers, not the crystal's.

/No time. No amends. No chance./

The hopelessness and sinking depression both belong to her.

"Yeah," she assures him. "I'm...here." Snow stares into her eyes for a long moment before giving her a dim smile.

"Yeah. Okay, Sis." Snow blows out a shaky breath and pulls her upright. She expects him to leave her sitting, but he lifts her all the way up until she's on her feet again. Her vision fogs and fuzzes, and the niggling behind her right eye turns into a spear before everything evens out. Snow holds onto her arms, thumbs pressing into her biceps as he peers into her eyes. She knows she should shake him off, but she's still reeling from the triple shock of her blackout, her encounter with the strange statues and then her trip through the crystal's past. "You know, Sis, you need to stop touching these damn crystals. You were on the floor staring into nothing when I found you."

Not really nothing. She was staring into the past.

"And don't think we're not having a conversation about you wandering off." She shrugs and shakes Snow off. "So, uh...what did it show you?"

She can tell that he doesn't believe she'll answer him. She almost doesn't. "It showed me what happened to this tower."

"What was that?"

"Barthandelus. He tricked her," Lightning gestures at the weeping woman "into trying to destroy Cocoon."

"Good old Bart," Snow quips with a snarl. "Gotta hand it to him...at least he's consistent."

Fang laughs from behind Snow, startling the both of them. "He is at that, Hero." Fang looks at Lightning and says, "Any great revelations then?"

Lightning looks around and says. "No."

"Ah. Why am I not surprised?" There's banked anger in Fang's tone; her whole aura is one of barely contained **intent**.

Things are going to get ugly, and Lightning really isn't up for it.

Snow shakes his head. "Well, I'm going to go...do something else," he says and beats a hasty retreat.

"Coward," Fang snipes but there's no real malice behind it. Snow flips her off on his way out the door and Lightning snorts. Fang shakes her head and says, "I think the Hero is getting smarter."

"Or he's just sick of all the bickering."

"Isn't that what I said?" Fang asks and takes a few steps into the room. "How'd you get in here anyway?"

Lightning barely hears the question as she stares at the crystal's despondent features. The strange woman's grief has only redoubled her own. "I know her."

"I really kinda doubt that," Fang says. "This crystal's been here forever."

"Forever?"

"For as long as anyone remembers. There's no written history before that crystal." Fang steps close to her. "You know, I've never actually seen her before. Part of me thought she was just a myth. She's the Weeping Woman." Fang says. "There are only two. Crying crystals trapped forever in their sadness."

"Two?"

"One here, and another just outside the Paddrean Archeopolis." Fang looks at Lightning. "I've never seen either of them." Lightning thinks of Serah's crystal tear and realizes that her sister is now the third weeping woman in existence. "The Tower never let anyone into any of these rooms before. It guess it was guarding her."

"It was. And It still does," Lightning says and nods to the statues that granted her access. Fang peers over her shoulder.

"Those uglies look nasty," Fang says with a frown. "How'd you get past them?"

Lightning thinks about the pain in her head, the blood pouring from her nose. The feeling of being turned inside out by fingers in her gray matter. The feeling of being pinched, scratched, bitten, devoured. She's not going to be ready to talk about any of that until two weeks after hell freezes over. "Would you believe I dazzled them with my charm?"

"Absolutely not." Lightning shrugs.

"Me neither. But something I said got me in here."

"Bully for you." Fang does a slow circle around the crystal. "What exactly did you expect to learn from her anyway? I mean, it's a crystal..."

"Do you know the story?" Lightning asks.

"No one knows the story," Fang declares more forcefully than necessary. "I just told you! There's no history older than this statue."

"Well, I know it." Fang reacts to that one and Lightning presses her luck. It's time they had this talk. Passed time, most likely. "I think you do too. Or you did."

"I'm not up for games today." Fang puts her hands on her hips. "What's that mean?"

"Do you remember anything? About...before." The non sequitur seems to aggravate Fang more than anything else. "Your last time as a l'Cie, I mean."

"You actually asking me if I remember being Ragnarok then?" Fang snaps. "I was wondering if you were going to figure it out, and if you had, if you'd have the stones to ask me."

Lightning's not sure what approach to take. Right now, she's full of one part sadness and two parts rage. She looks at Fang and realizes that the woman is baiting her. She wants to escalate to violence. _Well too bad. _Lightning remains calm and on point. "You remember?"

"No, I don't bloody well remember!" Fang cracks, rakes her fingers through hair as she raves. "I've been over it a thousand times and I don't remember a damn thing. But I had it out with Vanille back in Mah'Habara. She didn't tell me, but since her stupid Eidolon decided to try to kill us all, I'm assuming I was on the right track."

Ah! And that explains the mystery of why the fifty armed nightmare appeared in that miserable cavern to dump more rocks on their already cracked heads.

"Well, I know you were," Lightning declares and waits for the fallout.

"Wanna explain that statement?" Fang is deceptively calm. Lightning feels the hairs on her body stand on end.

_In for a penny, in for a pound. Whatever the hell that means. _She considers where to start, decides that every point in the story is lousy.

"I have a theory about why you can't remember anything."

"Go on, then. I am all ears, as they say." Fang leans against the wall in a damn good impression of unaffected posture. She even crosses her arms over her chest and one foot over the other to complete the pose.

Lightning isn't fooled.

"I think that you can't remember because you have to make a sacrifice in order to complete the transformation." Fang looks unimpressed and a bit confused, and Lightning sighs. "It's like..." _what's it really like?_ "Like dues of some sort. You have to pay in order to join the club."

"And you think I paid with what? My worst memories? Memories of becoming a monster? That sounds great, not like a sacrifice!"

"Really? You feel great with a big giant hole in your memories?" Lightning asks, patience disappearing like water through a sieve. Fang tenses and Lightning can't seem to care. "And how do you know it's your 'worst' memories. Maybe you had the solution all along, but you had to give it up to finally achieve," she flails for the explanation. "whatever."

"Achieve **_whatever_**?"

Lightning feels her face get hot and points at the weeping woman's crystal. "This woman had to give up her unborn child to become Ragnarok."

Fang goes white as marble, gapes like a beached fish before whispering: "You can't know that..."

"I do know it. I saw it when I touched the crystal. And I've dreamed of it." Lightning turns and stares at her, remembers her long ago dream clearly. "She was one of the first. Maybe she was the first, I don't know."

"That's right! You don't know." Pale cheeks bloom red blossoms high up: rage and fear written in blood across her face.

_/Terror transforms through time...rewrite your flesh and bone and blood/_

"I know you were being chased and hunted." Lightning turns and watches Fang blanch again. "I know that terrible things happened..."

"Shut up!" Fang goes from white back to scarlet, and Lightning wonders if there are consequences to paling and flushing so rapidly. She doesn't really want to know.

"Alright," Lightning agrees. It was never her intention to tell Fang anyway. "My point is, I don't think these things are just memories. I think they're part of Ragnarok."

"So..." Fang looks at her as if seeing her for the first time. "...and what? So are you? Is that what you're saying?"

"Not yet. But I think I hear it now." Whispers and voices drawing her along dark hallways, drawing her into dangerous places. The admission is terrible, but less so than she expected it to be. "I think I feel it now."

"Maybe it's just the transformation." Fang says and flinches. "I mean..."

"It could be." But it isn't. Lightning knows it isn't.

"Why are you so bleeding calm about this?" Fang shouts.

"Because I'm not afraid."

_/Let not your fears control you, or give life to them you will/ _

"Not anymore." Not right now anyway. If Fang checks again in ten minutes, Lightning might be terrified, but standing here and looking at this poor broken woman, she isn't afraid. She's just weary.

She's resigned.

"Alright, so say you're right. What do you think I actually gave up?" Lightning sighs.

"I think they demanded Vanille." Lightning closes her eyes and can still hear it and smell it. Can still see the rope over the hanging branch. She shivers.

"Yeah, well I would never sacrifice Vanille," Fang says.

"I know it." She remembers the rage. She can still feel her body twisting and contorting, tendons and muscles shredding like overcooked meat under the strain of transformation.

"So what are you saying then?" Fang eyes her suspiciously.

Good question.

"I'm just...I'm just saying be ready for what we find. Because we are going to find it." That really didn't make any sense, even to her. But Fang nods at her anyway.

"You didn't see anything else then?"

_—Feet kicking in mid air for purchase, blood trailing down pale, bruised legs—_

"No."

Fang sighs and nods. She casts one more look at the weeping woman and bows her head for a moment before turning away. "Right then. Are we done here? This statue is giving me the creeps."

"Sure," Lightning says and listens to Fang's hurried footsteps beat a retreat.

"By the way, your boy and Sazh managed to whip up something interesting while you were M.I.A." Lightning waits for more information, but Fang straddles the threshold looking uncomfortable as hell. "I'll wait for you out here, alright?"

Fang doesn't wait for acknowledgement before fading from sight. Lightning stares after her for a moment before turning back to face the weeping woman. She kneels before the crystal touches the hand again. _I promise you he'll pay for what he did to you; for what he took from you._

As she turns and leaves the sad crystal to its eternal suffering she thinks she hears a familiar voice warn her: _Be wary and swift. Your fears are the key. The devil's voice lulls even as it destroys._

Lightning glances back over her shoulder at the unchanging crystal, considers, before leaving the nameless, lost, violent soul behind forever.

_Your fears are the key..._

It seems as if she's doomed to find answers that make no sense.

* * *

TBC...

So, one year later and I'm still writing this monster. But I did manage to get through Taejin's Tower and try to give you all some more information, even if that information is convoluted and confusing. I figure ancient, powerful beings will never speak plainly. At least they weren't speaking in rhyme, right? And no one demanded a shrubbery, or yelled, "Quick, get a sword, I want to cut his head off!" (And if you don't get any of that, SHAME ON YOU! Go Watch Monty Python right now!)  
"There's a peace that can be found only on the other side of war" is a quote/paraphrase from the movie First Knight (I believe). I give credit where it is due.

And I'm just going to take this opportunity to COMPLAIN about this site's refusal to allow me to format my chapter the way I want to. Trying to convey the creepiness of three statues talking at once when I can't SPACE anything out or do anything that's not this irritating, standard format is just...IRRITATING. (Give me a break! I just wrote 30 pages of convoluted mess for you. I'm not feeling very articulate anymore. My brains and life have been sucked out through my ear-hole!)


	29. Being and Nothingness

A/N-This chapter was actually twice as long when I uploaded it originally, but I tore it down and chopped it in half to maintain continuity. This is the shortest chapter I've written in MONTHS. No worries. The other half is almost ready as Chapter 30 and the wait won't be long.  
Dedication: This chapter is dedicated to my wonderful friend Deneb who is a beautiful soul and woman, a dedicated soldier and a wonderful doctor. She's taught me that one does not need to sacrifice brains for brawn, or beauty for strength. This is for you my dear! ;) I consider my life richer since I've met you!

* * *

"Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well."  
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Beauty is power; a smile is its sword."  
-John Ray

-Being and Nothingness-

Taejin's Tower is a bust.

Alright, that's not fair. There are pieces of information she has now that she didn't have before she entered the tower, but they are all square pegs and all the holes are round. She can't figure out how to hammer them in to make them fit, or to turn them into something usable. Her experience in the weeping woman's chambers can't be explained, nor duplicated by anyone else. The woman is silent where Lightning needs her to speak; the memory that she inflicted on Lighting haunts her, but for all that trauma, she believes that there's something that she's missing.

Or maybe there isn't anything at all, and all her dreams have been nothing more than echoes of another person's living nightmares, or projections of her own subconscious. She's not certain if those explanations are more relief or horror.

Lightning rubs her brow, feels a headache forming behind her eyes. All her hopes are dashed; she was counting on finding some sort of miracle in this tower. Something Sazh said to her back on the Archylte Steppe planted a seed in her; something about believing all or nothing, and Lightning believed that there might be a way clear of this mess. The part of her that still believed in 'fair' and 'just' insisted that if she looked and tried hard enough, she would be able to save herself-save them all-from this doom.

She's spent too much time with Snow. That has to be the answer. There's no other excuse for such unabashed optimism.

It's late. Everything is silent but for the steady breathing and soft snores of her sleeping friends. Their ability to sleep is a tease to her. The most irrational, exhausted part of her feels as if they are taunting her with what she desires but can never have. She rubs her eyes and drags herself from her warm bed, determined to get out of the room before she wakes everyone else up out of spite.

Lightning wanders the halls of the tower like disaffected ghost. Her body feels heavy; her mind is dull. She hasn't slept in...forever now, and tonight is the first and last chance she'll have to get a night's sleep in a bed.

She wishes she could sleep-both her body and her mind are begging for respite-but she can't still her mind. It churns around the problems, desperate for a solution she fears she'll never find. But it's more than just her mind that keeps sleep at bay.

She feels wrong – like her skin is too tight, or her organs have all reorganized themselves inside her body. To call it 'illness' would be inaccurate. She isn't sick. There's no malady that she's ever experienced affecting her body. She's not feverish, congested, or even nauseated. It's just _unfamiliar_.

She turns the word over in her mind a bit, decides that it is both accurate and understated. Her body feels unfamiliar because it is, in fact, altered beyond recognition.

Before she tried settling into a bed to get some well deserved rest, she passed in front of a very dingy mirror and recoiled. Her heartbeat kicked up and her fingers twitched for her weapon before her brain engaged enough to recognize that the strange human-monster hybrid standing before her was, in fact, her.

Lightning runs her fingers through her hair, feels the exhaustion drag at her like an extra bit of gravity. She shuffles along the corridor, head dipping and sagging under the weight of her exhaustion. She stops moving and sits cross-legged on the floor, feels the cold from the strange stone seep into her hips and settle at the base of her spine in a dull ache. She traces her fingers over the floor beside her alien-skinned knee, notes the rough texture, distracts herself with the play of rough stone against the sensitive pads of her fingers and the jagged tips of her nails.

She sighs, leans her head against the cool wall behind her and closes her tired eyes.

Her eyes...

They were the biggest shock of her appearance. The strange patterns and shadings on her skin making a mosaic of her complexion were disarming, but not surprising. She knew that her skin was transforming. She could see it. What she couldn't see, however, were the changes to her face. The changes to her eyes.

Something Lightning will never admit aloud is that she has a small streak of vanity in her. She's an attractive woman and she knows it. It's not something of which she should feel ashamed, but she somehow still **does.** Her looks used to irritate her: she felt that being attractive made people-made her fellow soldiers in particular-dismiss her as frivolous, the assumption being that she didn't earn her place, but received it as some token. Part of her knows that this feeling is more projection of her own issues than reflection of any actual facts; but knowing a thing and believing it are two different animals. The result was that she did everything she could to downplay her appearance for the first nineteen years of her life.

Somewhere in her first year of training, a female officer _(what was her name?)_ pulled her aside and explained to her that being attractive was an asset. (_Was it Jihl? Impossible! _Lightning knows she never met Jihl before this all started. Right?) Whatever her name was gave her a dressing down one day, telling her that 'a wise man once said that 'Beauty is a weapon; a smile is its sword.' You've been trained in how to use blades, Farron, and you're deadly. So what's the damn problem?' She went on to explain that people underestimating her was to Lightning's advantage, and any soldier unwilling to use assets at their disposal was a damned fool.

Never one to disregard advice of superiors, nor one to play the fool, Lightning took the advice to heart. She stopped resenting her looks and starting using them. The transition was difficult. She had no idea how to switch tracks from downplayed to attractive. She was never much for adornment, and as a soldier, it was impractical and ridiculous. Ear piercings always seemed like a vulnerability – something that could catch and tear and cause unnecessary damage.

_'What's the problem, Farron?_ '

The problem was that she spent years flying under the radar and had no idea how to break the habit. Everything she tried felt ridiculous and false, made her feel like she was wearing a costume rather than being true to herself. She toyed with the idea of piercings, and, on a lark, she got one. Ears were out for the sake of practicality; facial piercings were out as they were against regulations. She had a nice, flat tummy, so she got herself a navel ring. The pain of the piercing was sharp and bright, and the tiniest bit nauseating, but afterwards, she admired the delicate ring of silver against the toned, pale flesh of her abdomen. It was absurd and unnecessary, and it made her giddy because it was one hundred percent _hers_. She pierced herself for no reason other than_ she_ wanted to do it; it served no function; it aided no one. It was the first irresponsible, impulsive thing Lightning had done since her parents' death, and it was liberating as hell! The piercing did not belong to Serah's-sister-Lightning, or Cadet Lightning Farron of the Guardian Corps.

It belonged to Lightning, the woman.

She became more conscious of herself and her looks after the piercing. It was amazing how much easier that one tiny step made the entire transition; no more did she hide her slender, toned body in baggy, unattractive clothes, or tie her hair up into knots on her head. Oh, she didn't go crazy with painting her face or anything so obvious; she was still a soldier, after all, and frivolity rubbed against her grain. But the subtle changes she made changed everything. She became more comfortable with herself and that translated into every other part of her life. She had nothing to hide, no reason for shame; she flourished. She took note of the way people looked at her — some with an appreciate eye, some with an envious one. She never paid them much mind, never judged her own worth by her appearance. She was an exceptional soldier, and an attractive woman. She learned that the two were not mutually exclusive.

And she enjoyed being both; didn't see one as a hindrance to the other any longer.

Something she never admitted to anyone, not even herself, is that her eyes were her favorite feature. The blue was the same shade as her father's and the shape was all her mother. After her parents died, she could still see pieces of them every time she saw herself. When their faces would get fuzzy in her mind, all she need do was find a mirror and there they were, looking back at her. It made her feel less alone when the sadness rose up to drown her. Her eyes were a perfect blend of both her parents, and a reminder that they were forever a part of her.

Were. Once.

So when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror, she was not anywhere near as horrified by her scarred, tattered tapestry of skin as she was by her eyes. The blue of her irises - her father's blue - was gone. They were now a shining, inhuman glowing, gleaming gold. The pupils were elongated-_oval, _not round.

She no longer resembles her parents.

She now looks like the monster she is.

Lightning wonders how long she's been viewing the world through a stranger's eyes. Her friends must have seen it happen and chose to keep it from her. Part of Lightning is angered by the subterfuge, but most of her acknowledges the logic in the decision. Telling her would serve no purpose but upsetting her to who-knows-what end. Perhaps it would even hasten the transformation.

Still, it would have been nice to get a heads up.

She opens her eyes again and stares at the darkness inside the tower. She listens to the silence. It's all still outside her. She wishes she could steal just the tiniest bit of it, draw it into her like some sort of leech, and just. Sleep.

* * *

_Home is not a word or a place. It's a feeling, a state of being. A sense of safety, of comfort. It's hot tea in a mug, steam wafting; it's a crackle of fire. It's a soft, hand crocheted blanket wound around cold feet. It's a cool hand on a fevered brow. It's kisses and pillows, hot water and deep sleep._

_It is not the smell of exploded gunpowder, nor the touch of antiseptic. It's not the smell of decay and rot, nor the sounds of screams. It is not the sight of blood, nor bloated, fetid corpses. _

_It is all these things._

_The Tower is both home and not-home. It is comfortable and familiar. It is decimated and foreign. The grounds beyond the walls are littered with bodies; the air buzzes with insects feasting on dead flesh. The air is thick with the stink of death, the smell cloying and intoxicating. _

_Home is not coiled muscles, or cascading blood, but it seems that way now. It is miles of decomposition behind a bright red screen. It is an empty cavern, and an empty vessel. It is empty and complete. _

_Home is not unfamiliar voices, but it sounds that way now. Voices that scream and whine and cry; voices caterwauling incomprehensible words. Voices loaded with intent like ordnance, aimless and angry; weapons to obliterate, and turn all into nothing._

_It is not disembodied hands reaching and grabbing; it is not dismembered bodies rotting in a pile. _

_It is not strangers uniting in common purpose, joining minds and thoughts. It is not losing bits and pieces of one mind to accommodate and incorporate lost chunks of others. To mix up a sense of all and one; it is not, but it feels that way now._

_It is not pain like disembowelment. It is not a blade like a smile carving through flesh and meat and bone strewn about, but it tastes that way..._

_It is not violence, but it tastes that way now. Blood is sweeter than suspected, tangier than appreciated. Bones crunch like nutshells between massive jaws, break into dust that tickles the nose; flesh is more delicate than remembered as claws perforate and. Just. SHRED. It is a matter of mathematics; a matter of physics. It is energy converting from potential to kinetic, and the whipping of a tail and the beating of wings._

_It is metamorphosis. It is being. It is ancient purpose kissed with modern will._

_Home is not a downdraft, but when the breeze caresses skin, it feels that way. It is flying and floating on currents of air. It is rising and falling. It is bathing in the loving and terrified gaze of observers. It is the roar of a crowd, and the scream of a victim. It is mercy killings and silence. It is rage._

_Home is not Vengeance, but sometimes it is both root and cause . Dead eyes and maggots are not admirers, or audience, but they watch all the same. _

_Two wrongs don't make a right, they say, but what do three, four and five make?_

* * *

"Trouble sleeping, Soldier?"

Lightning startles and blinks, feels hot tears pour out of her burning eyes and catch on her eyelashes. She didn't fall asleep, but she's hard pressed to put a name to whatever the hell just happened to her. She dashes the tears away with the back of her hand, opens her eyes to look at Sazh...

And stares at the weeping woman instead.

She recoils as if slapped, spins and finds Sazh sitting behind her, back to the wall, lantern beside him, book in lap. She couldn't feel more exposed if she were stripped naked and staked out for the keen edge of a sociopath's blade right now. She's been wandering around, vacant and empty. It's not the first time, but it never gets less disturbing. She's feels hollow, like a plush toy with a hole through which all its stuffing leaked. She wants to search for the lost pieces of her, pick them up and shove them back into the chasm spreading behind her ribs and eyes, but it's not that simple. The pieces are nowhere anymore, and she couldn't reclaim them if she tried. She's being pulled apart and emptied of mind and soul to make room for the monster growing within.

She wonders when that will stop being disconcerting. And when did disconcerting become the proper terminology for unraveling like an old sweater?

Perhaps she should be more concerned that she's not more concerned. Or terrified.

"You alright?" Sazh asks, quirking an eyebrow at her in a strange approximation of concern. Lightning shakes her head then shrugs. "Confused?"

_Hell yeah, _is what she doesn't say. She says, "Exhausted."

"Join the club. Pull up a piece of the floor, Soldier." He shuffles over a bit in an unnecessary but warming gesture, and pats the ground next to him in invitation. "I could use some company."

Lightning accepts his offer, squats and settles beside him with a groan.

"Still sore?"

"Less than I ought to be considering everything." Sazh nods.

"You know, those scars look lighter," Sazh remarks apropos of nothing. Lightning looks down at her arm and realizes that Sazh is right. The ferning does look like it's fading.

She spends two seconds wondering what that means before deciding she doesn't care. Scars can't matter in the face of mental breakdown.

"And how are you feeling Sazh?" Lightning asks. "I thought you'd be trying to grab some decent sleep. Instead I find you...here. In this creepy room."

"It's not creepy." Sazh sits back against the wall, reaches up and plucks the sleeping chocobo from his hair. It looks bigger, Lightning realizes, and she wonders if it will ever have a chance to grow up big enough for Sazh to ride it for a change. She shakes the thought away. "I think she's sad, not creepy. Kinda tragic, you know."

Lightning nods. She does know.

"And it's peaceful in here for some reason."

She does not agree with that assessment.

"So, you thought you'd hang out in here with her instead of getting some sleep?"

"Nah. I couldn't sleep in this tower." Sazh pets the chocobo and it puffs up a bit at the attention. "It's too loud."

And that? Yeah...that makes _no_ sense.

Taejin's Tower is silent as a tomb, after all.

"This is probably the quietest place we've stayed since...ever. It's pretty much safe." Lightning reaches into Sazh's palm and pets the chocobo with the very tippy top of the pad of her pointer finger. The feathers are softer than silk, gossamer and delicate and she might be starting to understand why Sazh finds petting this strange, fragile creature so cathartic.

"Well, the safe part is debatable. But as for the quiet, I think that's what I mean." Sazh looks up at the Weeping Woman. "I'm not used to it. There's nothing to drown out the noise in my head, if that makes any sense."

It makes plenty of sense. The inside of her head is a scary place -

_/home/_

- filled with monsters these days. She wonders if Sazh has a similar secret.

"What are you doing here, Soldier?" Sazh gives her a blank look and she knows that the question is loaded. He already knows that she has no idea.

"You hear the call too, huh?" That gets her attention.

"What?"

"This place is quiet except for the...I don't know. The crying, I suppose. I can hear it when I try to sleep. It sounds too much like..."

_/...She's sobbing, pleading for death with a wrecked voice. 'I'm ready. Let me go-'  
His heart wails 'no' but his lips say, 'Yes.'/_

The image leaves her shuddering. It's an eye blink. It's a lifetime.

It's a memory that isn't hers and she'll be worried about that later.

_...like when his wife was dying_, is what Sazh doesn't say, but after that sneak peek, Lightning hears it all the same. She understands and relates, because there are certain sounds and smells that always drag that final day in the hospital out from the depths of her brain as well, no matter how deep she buries it.

What she doesn't understand is why he would seek out the source of such agony, rather than run from it. She is a strong person, but she can't fathom the depths of Sazh's strength.

"So you came here?"

"I think she knows when we're here. It seems quieter now." The assessment makes no sense, but Lightning can't refute it.

Too many things that are true make no sense these days.

"I don't hear her." She admits. Lightning wonders why that might be.

"Part of you must. You were drawn here, same as me." Sazh slips the chocobo back into its odd nest and opens the book in his lap again.

Part of her...

She feels something shift, like a flutter beneath her skin, inside her chest, inside her brain. There's no pain involved, but it's uncomfortable all the same. She exhales the fear and turns to Sazh to find him watching her with an alarmed look.

She's seen that look before. Back in Mah'Habara. _/Did I do something particularly scary again?/ _And now she wonders if that might be when her eyes changed color. _/Did I sprout horns or a tail?/ _Fang laughed the question off, but Lightning can't help but think, in retrospect, that Fang's laughter was more nervous than humored. She feels her face heat. _More secrets_, she realizes. Her blood thrums hard in her temples, in her throat. The smallest movement with throw her off the ledge from pissed off into a full blown fury.

She counts backwards. Exhales.

_It doesn't matter._

"Something just transform there?" she asks Sazh. He looks even more surprised. She figures she'll try for humor in a situation which is not funny. "Did I sprout horns or a tail?"

Sazh shakes his head. "Nah. Nothing that dramatic. It's probably my imagination..."

"I don't think so," Lightning insists. "I mean, my eyes weren't." He hides his surprise, but she sees it all the same. "My skin isn't. Want to share?"

"I can't explain it." Lightning feels her frustration ratchet up, feels something twist inside her in answer. Her anger seems linked to the monster inside her. Anger feeds it, and then it stokes the anger. A neat little cycle that she needs to fear.

"It was like a shimmer. Maybe. I don't know. Like you're there, but not really and I can see something else, but it's more like a hallucination on my part than anything physical. It's nothing that a mind can comprehend, if you want my opinion. It's not something that I can see, so much as sense." He purses his lips in frustration. "I know that makes no sense at all." He trails off and shakes his head. "Did it hurt?"

"No." She feels a bit sick and she's not sure why she insisted he describe the sight to her. "I'm running out of time here, Sazh."

"Yeah, I know it Soldier. I know it." Sazh pats her shoulder and then looks back at the book. "We all are, I think."

She realizes that he mentioned noise in his head earlier and never elaborated.

"What's been...have you..." She has no idea what she wants to say. _Have you forgotten your son again? _seems pretty cold, even for her.

"They're getting more frequent now." She waits and he doesn't seem interested in sharing what 'they' are.

She supposes it doesn't matter.

She stands up and walks over to the Weeping Woman. It doesn't make sense that they'd find this woman here and not find any answers. She's calling to them in one way or another. It's the most logical explanation for how they found the room. The part of her that is no longer her must hear whatever call Sazh seems to hear. So she must want to tell them something.

"Why won't you tell us?" Lightning asks the crystal. She reaches out and—

_(Home destroy kill betrayed vengeance failure sadness solitude forsaken villain beast killer Destroyer Home)_

"Soldier! Hey, Lightning!"

She's shaking so hard her teeth ache and her head throbs. She feels fingers digging bruises into her arms, feels muscles hardening beneath skin. She shakes her head, shrugs off hands and wipes at wetness on her face. Her hands come away with streaks of red and she wipes under nose. There's no blood and she can't figure out what the hell...

Sazh wipes under her eyes with a soft, damp cloth. "It's alright now," he mutters, but she can hear the tremor in his voice, feel the trembling in his fingers where they brush against her cheek. She reaches up and takes the cloth, looks at the blood smears on it. She wipes under her eyes, down her cheek and the cloth comes away warm and wet.

Tears of blood. She's _crying_ blood now.

"That's different," she murmurs through numb lips.

Sazh grabs her by the arm and drags her away from the crystal. He presses her against the wall and leans next to her. He places a shaky hand over his eyes and slides down to the floor. She decides that's a great idea and follows suit.

"I'm too old for this," Sazh mumbles into the hand still over his face. Then repeats it louder. She waits him out because she knows she's managed to outdo herself this time, though she's not sure how. It was a split second. She never even touched the crystal.

"So, did that make you feel better?" Sazh asks, voice tinged with anger. "Why...I mean, seriously...what in the name of...WHY did you touch that crystal?"

She didn't. Except she did, and she doesn't know why... Except: "She's got answers."

"Answers..." Sazh repeats then asks, "Well? Any ideas then? Now that you've managed to brain damage yourself even more. Did you get any answers, Soldier?"

He's angry and she isn't in any condition to debate with him. She decides to let him be angry and just says, "No."

"What a surprise!"

"You said yourself, that you can hear her. That she's sad."

"Yeah. But I didn't touch her."

"If she's speaking to you, maybe you should have."

"No thanks, Soldier. I have enough problems right now without letting some ancient, tortured soul wreak havoc with my mind."

"Well someone had to," she declares, defiant.

"No. Someone did not have to!"

"I came here for answers, Sazh. If we leave without them..."

"Alright, fine. You need answers. Do you have to die in pursuit of those answers?" He waits a beat before saying, "Don't do it again, alright? It was...It was horrible." Sazh shakes his head. "I could hear it, and I could see it. I could _feel_ it. My ears popped like they do in a rapid depressurization. It hurt! Don't be surprised if everyone comes running."

That he could see it doesn't shock her. Hear it? Alright. Confusing, but alright. But the idea that he can feel it too? That _they_ can feel it too? She never thought of that. It never occurred to her that the things that happened to her internally were affecting her environment; affecting the others.

She spends a moment turning the knowledge over in her mind before deciding that she's stupid. They all share a focus, after all. They are all in this together. She's dealing with magic that they don't understand and can't comprehend. For all she knows, her own transformation is hastening the others along their paths too.

Welcome to a whole new nightmare! She feels like she might throw up, except she hasn't eaten anything in...she can't remember how long anymore. That doesn't seem to stop her stomach from churning around itself, gearing up for an explosive show.

"I don't know why she won't answer," Lightning whispers. She feels frustrated and helpless, and vents them as petulance. "We need answers and she has them. Why won't she help?"

"I don't think she can." Sazh sighs and puts a clammy hand on the back of Lightning's neck. It's reassurance for the both of them. "I think she's lost in a hell of her own making, and all she can do is shout into the darkness, and hope someone hears."

Sounds familiar; sounds _right_**.**

A hell of her own making. Is that what being a crystal means? Trapped between worlds in a lucid dreams, reliving worst mistakes and regrets? Is that what his son and her sister are living through?

Is that the definition of 'Eternal Life?'

She shivers and pushes the thoughts aside. She can't deal with them right now.

"We hear it. Why can't we help her?" She looks around and spots the shining eyes of the strange statues. "And they hear her too." Vulnerability morphs into outrage. "Bastards. They have answers and they won't tell us."

"Uh. I don't think cursing at them is such a great plan there, Soldier."

"Whatever," she snipes, sounding all of thirteen. She feels it right then - like a defiant, rebellious teenager trying to get under her parents' skin. She has a new appreciation for Hope and his antics. It doesn't mean that she's not going to want to smack him in his smart mouth ever again, but it might help her continue to resist the urge when he's being bitch-faced with her.

"Alright then. So if they didn't help at all, what did they say?"

"Nothing that made any sense." Riddles and nonsense. Backwards speak that meant nothing to her, but teased her with possibilities. "Does the book have anything useful to say?"

"Same story, I'm afraid. There's not much I understand. Here: this part keeps talking about 'the doom of the powers.' It reads like some backwards poetry.  
'Neither love nor pity nor regret,  
Nor empathy did they feel.  
Fearing the fruits of disdain, she created their doom;  
A Beast of Earth and Water, and Fire and Air  
A gift to Humans, to the First's despair.  
A wandering spirit; to Human's call  
Only it come; and bring death to all.'  
"That's not very helpful, is it?" Sazh finishes and then grouses, "Tired of this nonsense."

She is too; but in the lines of that nonsensical ditty is something familiar. Something...

_/Ragnarok is her Gift to Humans...The bane of fal'Cie./_

"Wait. These statues said something that made no sense to me at the time. They said that Ragnarok was 'Her' gift to humans." Sazh stares at her for a long moment, then rereads the passage in the book. Then looks at her again.

"If this is about Ragnarok, then that's what this says too, I suppose. That mean something to you?"

"Maybe." The answer is flirting with her like some coy little tease. She keeps getting hints and flashes, but never enough to get an actual look. Never enough to pin it down. "That must burn Barthandelus. That the Maker gave _humans_ something."

"Wait a second," Sazh says like he's had the revelation. "Not just gave us _something_, Soldier." He reads the passage again and mumbles, "that's it. According to this, The Maker created Ragnarok for Humans to use to defend themselves against the fal'Cie."

A watchdog of sorts. A weapon to keep them in line. She remembers the carvings in the library, remembers something about creating Humans to teach love to the First. It seems the Maker knew that the fal'Cie were flawed, and far too powerful. So, She made Ragnarok to protect humans. Which means...

"We were never supposed to be under their control." All the scraping and begging; all the obedience and worship. It was all an illusion. It was a damnable _lie_. "That was never the intention."

Sazh shakes his head. "I guess. It seems that way, now that you mention it."

"But the Maker left, and the fal'Cie decided that they didn't like humans having anything that they didn't have. "

"Not all of them-"

"No." Dahaka, for all its flaws, was trying to kill the l'Cie created to destroy Cocoon; and from what Lightning understands, none of the fal'Cie of Pulse are all that involved in the day to day lives of humans. "Not all of them."

"So, they make l'Cie to control us as…what? Punishment?"

"Maybe," she says, unable to quite fathom the thoughts of the fal'Cie.

_/Abomination... desecration of the song...Anima...betrayed the design/_

Perhaps that is what the statues meant by abominations and traitors. Perhaps the creation of l'Cie was outside of the natural order; contrary to the Maker's plans.

_/You are unclean and unintended/_

As 'abominations' outside the natural order, there is no place for them in either world; in either life. As walking, talking 'disharmonious' things, the fal'Cie might just feel obligated to destroy l'Cie. If most of the fal'Cie believe in the so-called 'Design,' then it would be their duty to defend it.

Wouldn't it? It's possible, if difficult to grasp.

"Or…you know the more I think about it…the more I think Barthandelus created Cocoon as his own little miniature world."

A microcosm of sorts.

_/Hubris and blasphemy!/_

"Maybe it even started as a tribute to the Maker," Sazh continues.

He's lost her. She takes a moment, turns the statement over in her head to look at it from all angles and still comes up blank. "What do you mean?"

"I'm just thinking...after my wife died, Dajh spent a lot of time doing things that his mama used to do. He'd clean his room, pick up his toys. He'd even pretend to cook dinner; or mime vacuuming by running his toys over the carpets to make the lines like a vacuum cleaner. I guess he thought if he did well enough, his mama would come home," Sazh chokes on the last syllable and covers his eyes. Lightning feels her own eyes sting.

Bargaining. She remembers going through that phase after her parents died. It was nothing quite so simple with her since she knew her parents weren't coming back. Still, she couldn't help wondering if they would approve of how she handled the deaths; if they were proud of her. If she was failing them by not doing a good enough job taking care of Serah.

The dark is a bad place to think such thoughts. Something about the middle of the night brings grief nearer, makes wounds fresher. She dashes tears from her eyes and waits for Sazh to pull himself together.

He takes another moment, clears his throat and starts again. "Maybe designing Cocoon was his first try to get his lost mother's attention. As his way of making Her come back. It's a child's logic – if his Maker was proud of him then she'd return. But when she didn't, he got angry and he decided to get her attention another way."

She picks up the train of thought. "By killing humans."

"Not just some either. Lots. All, maybe." Sazh pauses, considering. "But there was a fly in the ointment."

"Ragnarok," she's almost thrilled at the prospect of finding some elusive answers, even if it is all conjecture and assumption. It's more than they had yesterday, and something about it smacks of the truth, even if it's not absolute.

"Right," he agrees, eyes alight. "So, being a pissed off, too powerful maniac, he decided to make himself his very own human slaves. Something that would have to obey him. Something that was capable of controlling 'The Doom of the Powers.' Something that would give him more power than other fal'Cie. A very creative answer to a seeming no win scenario, if I do say so myself."

Lightning thinks about it. She thinks about Barthandelus's near tangible rage, and the cold and callous way he murdered Jihl. Beneath his desire to be reunited with his 'Maker' lurks a burning hatred for humanity. It seems probable that he would garner great pleasure from using humans' weapons against them, just as he derives joy from dominating and terrorizing humans. Sazh may have hit closer to the mark than he thought or intended. "Makes sense. I have a feeling that didn't go over too well."

"Yeah, that might go a long way towards explaining the longstanding feud between Cocoon and Pulse. If most of the fal'Cie weren't on board with Barthandelus's plan, they'd try to fight him."

"The War of Transgression," Lightning mumbles. She'd always wondered at the name given to the ancient war, but like most other things in her life, it hadn't mattered. Information was doled out by the Sanctum-by Barthandelus-and she accepted it like a good little soldier. Pulse was the enemy, had always been the enemy and always would be the enemy. "They told us what it was all about in the name."

"Yeah, we'd always just assumed that it was Pulse's transgression, and I suppose it was in some ways. It seems as if Anima was allied with Barthandelus. "

"So it was Barthandelus's transgression." _Traitor_, floats through her mind. "And Anima's. And for all we know, all the other fal'Cie on Cocoon." The thought makes her see red in a very literal sense, causes a strange shifting beneath her skin again, kicks up a monstrous growl in her throat. "They were trying to defy the natural order of things. They used us as pawns in their own stupid war. They manipulated humans into fighting each other."

"Seems that way, doesn't it?" Sazh nods once, a slow deep thing, then shakes his head. He stays silent for a moment, considering. "I'm sure there's more to it than that. It feels a bit simplistic, but I'm guessing we're on the right track."

"It's close enough, Sazh. It fits all the evidence we have, at least."

"Does it help us any?"

_Does it? _The landscape of her mind is far too treacherous and confusing right now to make necessary connections. No food and no sleep add up to subpar thinking, it seems. Still, she decides that Sazh's insights must help. She only needs to figure out how. "I'm sure it does. I just have no idea how yet."

Sazh laughs. "Yeah, I think we could both use a bit of sleep before tomorrow. Fang said that Oerba's just on the far side of this Tower." He attempts a crappy imitation of Fang's accent: "A quick jaunt."

Oerba. They've been walking forever to get there, and now that they're a few hours from reaching their destination, she wants to turn around and run. Nothing good can exist in Oerba. If they're just a few hours away, they should see signs of life. There should be sounds of human life on the breezes; there should be smells of machinery. There's always smoke where there is fire, after all. There should be something to indicate that everyone isn't dead. She knows that Fang and Vanille are bracing themselves for the worst-she can see it in their eyes and in the tense lines of their posture. "I have a bad feeling about what we're going to find."

"That makes two of us," Sazh says.

"Tomorrow's going to be a bad day."

"Like that's a change. Every day sucks these days, doesn't it?"

Lightning hums a noncommittal sound. She's not sure right now. Some days have been pure terror. Others have been hodgepodges, filled with laughter, horror, warm smiles and agonizing wounds.

Filled with friends, and she's not sure she'd give those days up to spare herself the uncertain future.

"Let's go, Soldier. I need some sleep and there's nothing more that this Weeping Woman can tell us."

She lets Sazh pull her up from the floor as she stares at the crystal woman. Sazh holds her hand a second longer than necessary, squeezes it to redirect her attention, and gives her a small but genuine smile before dropping her hand and walking out of the room.

Lightning takes a quick glance around, feels sad and relieved at once because she knows that she will never return to this room. She says a silent farewell to the woman, and leaves her to her eerie, silent guardians. She whispers "Thank you" to the stone gods, and can almost feel the disapproval from earlier melt away.

Perhaps it's wishful thinking. She seems to have developed a knack for lying to herself.

* * *

TBC...

A/N # 2-There are people who may disagree with my characterization of Lightning as a woman who is proud of her looks-You know who you are! :D I personally believe that Lightning is beautiful and strong, and that both traits can exist in a woman at the same time. I find the idea that a woman can't be taken seriously if she is proud of her beauty absurd. It's a dangerous trap we fall into-believing that the beautiful are frivolous, and that femininity must be subverted in order for a woman to be serious and powerful. I know women who are police officers and paramedics in some of the roughest neighborhoods in NYC (who have been held at gunpoint and shot at; one received a commendation for bravery), not to mention a friend is who is a soldier-all of whom are serious, strong. intelligent women AND who are beautiful and feminine. I decided to address the matter directly since I view Lightning's confidence and abilities as a direct result of her acceptance of herself as both a woman and soldier. Taking pride in one's appearance is not the same thing as being preoccupied with looks to the point of distasteful vanity. Sorry if you disagree; you are entitled to your opinions. END of lecture!


	30. The Waste Land

Did I say it would be soon? I lied. I took a hiatus and got lost in Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. As such, I'm going to dedicate this chapter to Tikigod784 who recommended the games to me. They are awesome and so is he!  
Thanks to my BETA (that's right - I got a beta!) In A Quandary.  
As always, thanks to my readers for sticking with me, even when I disappear. As I haven't finished ME2 yet...I'm destined to disappear again. Sorry.

* * *

_What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow  
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,  
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only  
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,  
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,  
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only  
There is shadow under this red rock,  
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),  
And I will show you something different from either  
Your shadow at morning striding behind you  
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;  
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.  
_-T.S. Eliot, _The Waste Land_

—The Waste Land—

Dawn breaks both too soon and not soon enough for Lightning. While Sazh falls into a deep sleep within moments of collapsing onto the bunk, Lightning finds no rest within the barracks. Her brain does not want to shut off long enough to allow her to drop off into slumber. Instead she spends those slow, bleak hours staring at the inside of her eyelids and going over everything she and Sazh discussed, counting out the minutes in heartbeats while tossing and turning.

She knows that there's more behind the realizations from earlier. If she were herself instead of this exhausted shadow, she'd have the elusive answers.

More than once during those slow, dark hours she feels a malignant gaze upon her. It's a twinge in the small of her back, a tingle across the surface of her skin, a tremor in her innards. But when she opens her eyes and peers into the shadows, there is nothing there. She casts uncomfortable wary glances into the darkness, curls her fingers around her weapon and waits for movement. Waits for the splotches of darkness to coalesce into something corporeal. Waits for a target to present itself. She is certain that something – _someone_ – is watching them.

The feeling makes her skin crawl.

She waits for the feeling to abate or pay out. Neither happens. She tries to dismiss the eerie sensation of being watched in hopes of catching a few brief hours of real sleep, but she can't eradicate the raised hairs or the tickle on her neck. She can't extinguish years of training and instinct no matter how many times she reminds herself that she may be losing her mind.

The unsettled feeling, combined with the exhaustion-induced paranoia, slams the door on any hope for sleep and forces her body into a state of hyper-vigilance.

She's so frustrated she could scream. Or cry.

Her nerves are more frayed than an old sweater, and unraveling by the minute.

She rises with the sun despite her body's objections. She feels weary but ready. Fang wakes and is on her feet in what looks like one movement. She's bright eyed and bushy-tailed, as her father used to say, and Lightning can't suppress the wave of jealousy and longing. Once upon a time, she too was able to snap-to with ruthless efficiency.

Those days are long gone. Now she feels stooped. Broken.

"Morning then," Fang says with a nod and the suggestion of a wink. Lightning feels her lip twitch with disdain. "You look like hell, you know."

Blunt and charming as ever. It makes Lightning smile.

"Thank you." She tries to inject as much sarcasm as possible into the two words. From the smirk she earns, she guesses she succeeded. Lightning can see anticipation, excitement and fear all warring for dominance in every tense line of Fang's body.

"Are you ready for this?"

Fang doesn't bother pretending not to understand the vague question. She shrugs, winks and says, "I was born ready."

It is false bravado and makes Lightning's entire body clench with apprehension.

Today is going to be a very bad day.

"Let's get everyone up and moving."

* * *

Hope isn't speaking to her. It shouldn't sting quite so much...but it does. She knows that she delivered the psychological and emotional equivalent of a haymaker yesterday. Hope wanted to help her and she hurled a thousand pound weight on his shoulders by implying he may have accelerated her transformation. She never wanted to tell him the whole truth, but the all the secrets are destroying them bit by bit and they don't have the time or energy to maintain facades any longer.

_She_ doesn't have the energy or time.

Still...

She feels that it was her place – her _duty_ – to protect Hope. That she couldn't keep this truth from him seems a spectacular failure on her part. She hoped that he might be able to survive this debacle with some shred of his childhood innocence left.

She was a fool.

Survival is a dream. And if by some miracle any of them happen to survive, none of them will ever be the same.

She shielded him from the worst of the truths for too long. She knows now that it was doing him more harm than good, convincing him to hold fast to false hope. What sorts of trouble might he find trailing after an imaginary panacea?

It all sounds so noble when put into logical terms, but there's nothing admirable about terrifying a child. Her blunt declarations yesterday left Hope frightened and furious, forcing him to lash out in the style of all teenagers everywhere.

Now he's _ignoring_ her in the most obnoxious way imaginable.

He speaks around her and over her; asks questions designed for her, but directs them to others. He alternates between throwing her nasty looks and staring through her. Every so often his eyes will do a slow sweep of the room and then jump over her as if she were a black hole in his reality. Every pass of his gaze screams 'I'm not looking at you!' It's miles from subtle, and she might laugh at the infantile behavior if it didn't sting so damn much.

Lightning balls up the pain and stuffs it into a deep, dark corner of herself. It's ridiculous to let a teenager in the middle of a hissy-fit get under her skin and hurt her, but somehow, Hope's managed to do just that. It reminds her of raising Serah after their parents died.

They're memories she'd just as soon forget, except that memories are all she has left of her sister now.

That first year was tough on the both of them. There was a lot of adjusting to be done for each of them. Lightning went from sister to mother overnight; where she was once co-conspirator, now she was authoritarian. Serah lost her parents and sister in one fell swoop; what she received in return was a shoddy substitute who failed to live up to her obligations. When things got to be too much, Serah would shout things like 'I hate you,' and 'I wish you had died instead of mom.' Those words cut through Lightning like razor blades, made her feel every inch of her inadequacies. That Lightning sometimes agreed only compounded the problem.

That Serah was speaking nonsense in anger didn't mitigate the hurt, just as understanding Hope's feelings doesn't make the cold shoulder any more palatable.

She hates the whole stupid mess!

"You alright, Sis?"

Lightning looks up at Snow and all thoughts of her self-pity over Hope's bitch attack transforms into concern. "Yeah. You?"

Snow smirks and winks, but he's fooling no one.

The Hero looks terrible. He's pale and drawn, with a sheen of sweat clinging to his brow and lip. His clothes hang off him in an alarming manner, suggesting severe weight loss in a short time. There are hollows in his face where shadows pool. He looks as if he has aged by decades, stooped and arthritic, his gait stilted and cautious in deference to the obvious and chronic pain.

Pain he's been concealing for who-knows-how-long.

How did she miss it? Lightning knows that the signs of pain cannot be completely erased. Oh, for sure they can be masked, glossed over. A master of diversion might be able to redirect attention and concern, but no one can eliminate all the signs of persistent pain.

Agony is a pen that inscribes itself on every part of the body: it etches lines between brows, under mouths, into foreheads. It draws dark circles under eyes. It replaces the blush of health with dark shadows, and turns a person into a chiaroscuro image – all dark, deep shadows, and pale, waxy skin.

Snow looks like a diseased refugee. Something in his clammy, pasty complexion reminds her of the way her parents looked just before the end. He's missing only the blood mask, tents and negative pressure room to complete the picture. The comparison makes her ill, sets off butterflies the size of bats in her stomach.

She isn't certain how she missed Snow's transformation into the phantom standing before her. She scrolls through her memories like photographs: Snow – tragic and lost in the barracks; Snow – tense and irritable in the apothecary; Snow – weary and wary before the Weeping Woman. Sure, she noticed the deterioration and progressive exhaustion but she cannot recall him looking so...terrible.

It's possible that he's just become good at subterfuge, but she isn't willing to give him that much credit. Snow is good at many things, but lying isn't one of them; it's against his moral code, and, she suspects, his genetic one as well. _Heroes don't lie_, her mind whispers in Snow's voice, and she feels a smile tug at the corners of her mouth.

Perhaps the effects of the pain are cumulative, and something in the past day or so has exacerbated it. She searches her mind and draws a blank.

Perhaps she was paying more attention to the immediacy of Vanille's agony. Seeing as how she caused a great deal of it, it stands to reason her own guilt might preoccupy her.

Or perhaps she's been too self absorbed to pay attention to anyone else. Her personality tends to run towards obsessive, and once she focuses on something, she's hard-pressed to divert that attention.

That one rings a bit truer than any other option.

Snow moves away from her and she reaches out a hand to stop him, but pulls it back before it connects. What good will it do to make him speak of his pain? Will it ease it? Will it cure it? Or will it just force him to expend even more energy to conceal it, just as she has done?

Deception is draining. She knows how much energy it takes to hide, to smile through the pervasive ache and overwhelming exhaustion – to soldier on in hopes that no one will notice the cracks in the facade. The 'show' she put on for weeks wearied her more than the near constant pain and fear. She won't back Snow into that corner. She clenches the extended hand into a fist and drops it to her side. She lets Snow move on, watches as he pulls Hope aside to exchange secrets.

If he wants to speak with her, he will. If he wants to retreat and lick his wounds in private, that's his right.

Still, she decides to keep a closer watch over him. Snow tends to take hits aimed at other people; usually, that doesn't bother her. Much. But if he's the walking wounded right now, he's a liability to his teammates, and a hazard to himself.

The knot of worry in her throat tightens like a noose. She's nowhere near one hundred percent, and Snow looks almost incapacitated. Vanille's limp is still severe from the combination of the burn and the hack job Lightning did on her leg. Fang is distracted. Sazh is hiding something, and Hope is fourteen and in the middle of a full-on brat attack.

_Ugh!_

If anything big gets in their way, they're going to be in trouble. They're too distracted by half to deal with enemies. They need a break, but she doesn't see them getting one any time soon. In fact, the past few days in the Tower are the closest thing to a 'break' they are likely to see for the rest of their abbreviated lives. Lightning swallows down her trepidation and sets off towards the exit like a woman marching to the gallows.

* * *

Fang takes the lead through the Tower, driving them ever upwards. She bypasses the ancient elevators in favor of a convoluted and circuitous path up staircases and around crumbling walkways. There are elevators on the outer wall that should take them to ground level. Assuming that the elevators are still there and functioning – Lightning has her doubts – it's a short walk to Oerba from the foot of the tower.

It's a simple plan and a straight route. So why does Lightning feel like a rat in a maze?

They take their time, everyone lost in his or her own thoughts as they climb the levels, pass ancient statues and dozens of sealed doors. Lightning wonders what secrets they are leaving undiscovered in their haste to leave.

She wonders for the umpteenth time if they are making the right decision.

The higher they get, the tenser they get. The silence engulfs them, threatens to drown them with the force of its current. Sazh avoids meeting Lightning's eyes in an unusual sign of discomfort. Snow trains his gaze on the floor, keeps one hand on the wall beside him as if he's afraid he might topple any moment. It hurts her to see him suffer in silence.

She's getting a large dose of her own medicine, and she hates every swallow.

How many weeks did Snow watch her suffer? How many times did she insist he back off? Should she be a hypocrite now and try and force the issue?

She sighs and runs a shaky hand through tangled, ratty hair.

No. She'll show him the same respect she demanded from him. She'll hate it, but she'll do it. Lightning is many things, but she's always tried very hard not to add 'hypocrite' to that list.

Lightning tears her eyes from Snow and catches Hope throwing another surreptitious glance back at her. This is at least the third time she's caught him looking at her, but each time he turns away from her fast enough to give himself whiplash . He's still ignoring her in the most insufferable way imaginable. She huffs, and shakes her head.

She doesn't need the additional aggravation. She needs to talk to Hope, but she has neither the time nor the energy to have a full-on word duel with him. It would be a bad idea to engage in any sort of debate with him, feeling the way she does. Odds are, the first bitchy words out of his mouth will be met with her own vitriol, and things will just degenerate from there.

They both need a day to settle down. She promises herself that she won't let the sun set on this problem. Hope is too important to her to allow misunderstandings to fester. She knows that he feels responsible for too many losses for her to permit him to bathe in additional guilt. He carries too heavy a load for a boy so young without her adding to it.

Another staircase. Another elevator. Taejin's tower is a pinnacle and marvel. The higher she climbs, the more she wonders how humans built it.

The thought sticks in her teeth as she chews on it. She considers the ancient statues, the fal'Cie that called it home.

_Perhaps humans didn't build it, after all... _

Her line of thought is shattered by Vanille's saccharine voice decrying all the majesty of Oerba. Lightning spends the next ten minutes listening to an irritating description of colors and smells. All manner of minutia that shouldn't – _doesn't_ – matter. Her head throbs, and her temper sets to simmer. She clenches her fists and jaw, holds her tongue and waits the litany out. It can't go on for long.

Except it does. More and more metaphors about colors and smells, talk of food that makes Lightning's stomach grumble then sour, talk of baths that makes her scratch at the filth on her skin. Lightning huffs in an effort to dispel her frustration.

She wishes Vanille would shut up.

Every step increases Vanille's excitement, stepping up the rapid-fire nature of her chatter, which seems to work as some sort of natural analgesic. While her limp gets more pronounced with speed, she seems to be feeling less pain. The waxy cast and gray tinge to her skin fade away, and her face flushes with health and happiness. Vanille radiates joy as the sun radiates light and heat. For a moment, she's her beautiful, unblemished self again.

Lightning gnaws at her knuckle, wondering just how bad the crash from this high will be, fearing that Vanille might not recover. Wondering if she'll take them all with her in her nuclear meltdown. From the furrow in Fang's brow and the white lines around her mouth and eyes, Lightning can tell she's not the only one concerned.

"Wait until you see it, Hope!" Vanille is almost vibrating with excitement as they reach the apex of the tower. "The view is the most beautiful thing you'll ever see. Isn't it, Fang?"

Fang's got a hell of a game face, but Lightning knows her well enough now to see the wince. Her body is drawn tighter than an overdrawn bow.

_She knows_. It's beyond suspicion at this point. Fang flat out knows that nothing good lies beyond this tower. It's heartbreaking to watch her try to pretend that this journey will end in anything but devastation.

Lightning looks at Vanille and wishes for the second time today that she would just shut up.

Hope doesn't seem to pick up on Fang's tension, and he's still _ignoring_ Lightning. He gives Vanille a stupid, smitten smile and says, "I can't wait. It's going to be great."

Sazh rubs the back of his neck in what Lightning has come to think of as his 'tell.' That only makes Lightning more nervous. She feels like she's watching a high-speed wreck from the front seat, without virtue of a belt or helmet.

The carnage is going to be spectacular.

Snow creeps up next to her and whispers, "What do you think, Sis?"

"I think Vanille should be bracing herself."

Snow nods as if he expects the answer. "Maybe. But I figure that this is the last chance she gets to be excited about going home. Once we get to the top and find out for sure whether or not we've wasted weeks walking here, then the Oerba in her memory is gone forever. Until then, there's hope." Snow's eyes are haunted when she meets them. "Let her have her home for a few more minutes."

Lightning stumbles over the idea, wonders when Snow is going to stop surprising her. She swallows, glances at Snow and doesn't know how he can still be this positive after all they've seen.

She can't imagine what the hell they'd do without his optimism.

Lightning spends her life bracing for things, preparing for heartache and hardship; she spends so much time walling herself off and armoring herself that there's no time left for feeling. Maybe she's better off that way, but looking at Vanille right now, bouncing with happiness despite the horrors she's seen and atrocities she's committed, Lightning can't help but wonder if she's not screwing herself out of something miraculous to avoid something terrible.

She wonders if the trade off is worth it.

"Yeah," she agrees. "And you never know, right?"

Snow beams for a second, blue eyes twinkling. "Yeah, Sis." Snow pulls Serah's crystal tear from what appears to be thin air, gives it an appraising look before closing his fist around it. "You never know."

* * *

The image of Oerba that Vanille paints with her words is splashed across Lightning's mind as they reach the top of the tower. The cadence of Vanille's voice mixed with Snow's unique brand of optimism lulls Lightning, so that by the time they reach the top of the tower, she almost believes that the colorful and living Oerba will be there.

She should know better by now. Optimism is the domain of fools.

Vanille yells "Oerba" and almost trips over herself to get to the ledge. Lightning holds her breath, watches Vanille falter, blanch, and collapse at the sight. Hope hurries to her side to try and coax Vanille up from the floor.

"Damn it," Lightning mumbles and rubs her eyes. She knew it would be this way.

It's still awful.

"It's all gone," Vanille whispers. Her voice breaks as she says, "All of it."

"Come on Vanille. You don't know—"

"Look at it, Hope!" Vanille sobs and points toward the great beyond. "It's all gone. There' s nothing left of our home."

Fang's jaw clenches and she approaches Vanille. She doesn't even spare a glance for her lost home. "Come on, love." She crouches and puts her hands over Vanille's and tries to pry them off her face. "Come on. We talked about this. You knew that it was a possibility."

Snow is a steady presence at Lightning's side, fist clenched around Serah's crystal tear. He's fighting a scowl and losing. His fingers are bone white and lined with red from the pressure of bone pressing into skin. He's rigid, tense enough to snap in two.

Lightning understands what's upsetting him. He's been fighting all this time to get back to his home, to reclaim his life. Seeing Vanille's hopes dashed just dredges up Snow's greatest fear – that everything he's fought for, and everything he loves, is gone for good.

Lightning understands his fear because she shares it. From the look on Sazh's face, she guesses she's not the only one.

Fang and Vanille's tragedy is everyone else's nightmare.

"I knew that...that the people would probably be gone," Vanille admits, though her entire demeanor suggests she believed otherwise. Hope starts forward but freezes, realizes that he is an interloper. He glances over at Lightning, hesitant and desperate, and she gives him a small, encouraging smile, hopes he will let go of his childish behavior in the face of this grief. He looks relieved as he makes his way to her side. Snow ruffles his hair as he approaches and Hope bats the offending hand away before flashing Snow an epic scowl. Hope pauses at arm's length from Snow and looks back at Fang and Vanille, helpless as the rest of them to ease his friends' pain.

"What can we do?" Hope whispers.

"Nothing, Kid." Snow opens his palm and stares at the tear. "Nothing we can say or do is going to make this better. Their home is gone. Everything they fought for...it's gone." Snow swallows, puts his hand on Hope's neck and gives him a gentle shake. "Just give them some time."

"Time?" Hope snaps. "That's the one thing we don't have."

Hope fidgets, sighs and falls into silent despair. Lightning wishes she could comfort him, but there's none to be had here.

"I knew our friends were long gone. I didn't expect that Oerba would be so barren though." Vanille lifts her head from the cup of her hands and says, "There's no color left, Fang. It's just...dead."

"I know, love." Fang pushes Vanille's hair back from her forehead, then brushes the tears off her cheeks with a gentle thumb. "I know it. Come on then. Let's go see."

"I don't want to see," Vanille whispers, then sobs. "I don't ever want to see it."

The crying goes on forever. It's eternal and agonizing. Lightning feels tears clog her own nose and she sniffs and looks away from the two grieving women. Lightning hasn't felt this helpless since Serah disappeared into the Pulse Vestige. Of course back then she formulated a plan of action; she did something _useful_. Now, all she can do is stand impotent and watch her friend break apart like flower buds in a storm.

So they watch, and wait.

Lightning _hates_ waiting.

Fang waits until Vanille sniffles, nods and reaches out. Vanille can't get up on her own. Her body is crippled; now her soul is too. Fang grabs her around the forearm and pulls.

"Alright?" Fang asks. She echoes Lightning's question from earlier: "Ready for this, then?"

"Does it matter?"

"'fraid not," Fang sighs and casts a weary glance at the wasteland below. "I'm afraid it doesn't matter at all."

* * *

"Nomen mihi Legio est, quia multi sumus."  
-Mark 5:9  
Translation: "My name is Legion, for we are many."

* * *

The ride in the elevator is silent and grim. Grief stands beside them like an invisible companion, sucking the air from the small, cramped space faster than a vacuum might.

Lightning finds the quiet oppressive rather than comfortable. There's too many layers within the emptiness; too much subtext and sadness growing with each second. It's like someone lit a fire in the elevator and forgot to open a window. The air feels stifling, close. She wants to tear the walls down to let in the air. She can't breathe for all the sorrow.

She feels anxiety spreading through her chest like heartburn. She's tired of anticipation and just wants to get on with it already. Reality can't be much worse than her imaginings at this point, and from the looks on her friends' faces, she guesses they feel the same.

The elevator stops with a jerk and a jolt that sends her crashing into the side of the car. She hisses, Hope yelps and Fang lets out a creative curse that silences all other comments. Lightning expects a tension breaking joke, but none is forthcoming.

They're not in a joking mood, it seems.

Fang kicks open the door with more violence than necessary, tearing the metal hatch off ancient hinges. Snow steps out first to help the others from the car.

Lightning waits until the elevator is empty before debarking. She steps out onto gravel that crunches, slips and turns her ankle to the point of pain. She looks down, sees a carpet of sparkling white beneath her feet, follows it with her eyes to see it stretches as far as the eye can see in all directions. At first glance, it looks like snow, or ice. It's nowhere near cold enough outside for much more than morning dew or evening frost. She's never seen anything like it on either world. She kneels, slides her fingers into the fine gravel, winces at the feel of sharp edges slipping under fingernails to cut and gouge.

"What—"

"It's crystal," Vanille supplies. Lightning studies the sparkling pieces of rock in her hand with confused wonder. She brushes her hands off and watches as dozens of spots well with fresh blood. She blows on her hands in a vain effort to alleviate the stinging.

"Was this always here?" Hope asks. He bends to touch it and Snow grabs him by the back of the jacket, whispers a "careful" for Hope's ears alone. Hope shrugs him off, but doesn't reach for the crystals again.

Vanille shakes her head. "It wasn't always here. I don't know where it came from."

"It's from Cocoon," Fang declares, eyes fixed on an unseen point in the distance. "It's Cocoon's shell. From when..." She breaks off and shakes her head. "It's all been gone for five hundred years." She scrunches her face, curls her lip; holds onto the tatters of her control by her fingernails. "It was all for nothing then."

Lightning swallows, looks up at Cocoon overhead. She can imagine what Fang is thinking. Ragnarok broke Cocoon's shell five hundred years ago. If all the debris from that attack landed on Oerba, Ragnarok may be the cause of Oerba's demise.

_Fang_ may be her home's destroyer.

Sazh steps beside Fang, puts his hand on her arm. He waits for her to tear herself from her thoughts and meet his eyes.

"We don't know that yet," he murmurs, almost too low for Lightning to hear. "Come on. Let's go."

Lightning feels the pit of despair yawning wide beneath them. She's not sure how many more body blows they can take before the last shreds of determination disappear into the abyss, carrying what's left of their humanity with it.

* * *

The walk to Oerba is a death march, their silent shadows trailing them like a mock funeral procession. Fang takes the lead, cloaks herself in indignant rage, and wields her anger like a shield to deflect the misery that assails them. Vanille walks within arm's reach of Fang, either unwilling to face reality alone, or unable to force Fang to do so. The two of them walking arm in arm towards their decimated home is at once the saddest and bravest thing Lightning has ever seen.

They – none of them – will ever be the same.

Lightning realizes how much this journey has altered Vanille; or perhaps it's only affected Lightning's perceptions of her.

When Lightning first encountered Vanille, she assumed the girl would do anything to avoid facing or telling the truth. After all, she spent weeks travelling with them, keeping mum about truths that the others were desperate to uncover. She knew about the transformations, about Fang and Ragnarok. She remembered running for her life with Fang five hundred years ago. She remembered the assault that Lightning still refuses to think about.

Lightning's nightmares are Vanille's experiences.

Vanille remembered it all, and she concealed everything from her friends. She not only concealed the truth, but she hid from it as well. But now, despite her obvious terror, she walks side by side with Fang into the uncertain and ugly future.

It would be beautiful if it weren't so tragic.

Meanwhile, Sazh plays a silent shadow, does his best to remain available and unobtrusive. She is reminded again of the closeness Sazh shares with the Oerbans. These two women were his confidants through the first half of their journey; they were sharing grief and humor through that first month of exploration. They are family. Watching them suffer while feeling like an intruder must be killing him. Still, he remains strong, standing watch over the two women, waiting until they have need of him.

Lightning has no doubt that he'll be needed today. In truth, they all will. She hopes they have the combined strength to face this catastrophe.

Snow falls behind her under the guise of rearguard. Lightning suspects that he's too weary and overwhelmed to keep pace with the others. She remembers his arguments against coming to Oerba back in Vallis Media. He just wanted to return home then; she realizes that that desire has redoubled. Oerba's fate feels like history and prophesy at once.

The weight of his grief is pushing him further along in his transformation, she realizes. It's why he looks so terrible now. He's losing his battle.

Helpless fear creeps up her back like a spider.

Hope is pale and small, dragging his feet, caught between his desire to support his friends and shrink from the dead village at the end of the road. Every step puts a half pace between him and Vanille and closes the distance between him and Lightning. Snow appears on Lightning's right, throws her a wink then lets his long stride eat up the distance between him and Hope.

"Come on, Kid." He ruffles Hope's hair, earning himself a scowl and glare.

"Quit it!" Hope spits. Snow grins in answer and claps Hope on the back.

The "ouch" Hope grits out is half-hearted at best. "You're a real jerk."

"Know it," Snow replies and Hope gives him a hateful look. Snow's smile turns mischievous and stupid at once.

And just like that, Hope is focused and moving forward again.

Whatever strange magic Snow possesses is awe-inspiring. Lightning might be able to draw mysterious, unnamed powers and resurrect the dying (dead!), but she doubts she could have restored Hope's courage and self-assurance to him with three hours of talking and coddling. Snow managed to do it with three words and a backslap.

She's so lost in her own musings that she doesn't notice the tingle at the back of her neck indicative of being stalked, or the crawl of her skin due to the presence of something _wrong, _until she's hit from behind and sent sprawling. Pieces of crystal catch and tear the skin on her knees and the heels of her hands. The small stings disappear into the urgency of the moment.

_Get. Up._

"Lightning!"

She ignores Snow's shout and focuses on survival. She senses the impending attack, rolls and draws her weapon in one move. The large clubbed appendage misses her by mere feet, shakes the ground and sends a mist of crystal up to catch the light and scatter rainbows. She gets an up close look at too familiar gray skin as the arm sweeps towards her, sending shattered crystal at her face. She slams her eyes shut, rolls away, curls onto her side to protect her vision from the razor projectiles. Tiny shards tear into the flesh of her neck, embed the skin of her arms and legs. The arm strikes her across her spine, batters the air out of her body and sends her rolling off the road and into a rock beside it.

Skidding across the gravel is like sliding along a cheese grater. Her skin feels abraded, burned and torn at once. Every part of her body is irritated and raw, pulsating as air brushes against the fresh wounds.

Lightning gasps like a beached fish, curls into a ball around the pains rolling through her body, and anticipates the next relentless assault. She needs to get up and defend herself, but her lungs are on fire, her head spins in slow turns, and her whole body is weak from the bruising hit and loss of oxygen.

_Move or die, Lightning._

A shadow falls across her and she tenses, takes a breath and rolls into the attack in hopes of either coming up under the descending arm, or putting herself outside the immediate impact zone. The gamble pays off – somewhat.

The massive blow intended to cave in her chest instead catches only the very edge of her shoulder blade. She hears something crack. The hit shocks a shout from her, numbs and burns at once, sends fire and electricity down the nerves of her arm. Her hand goes limp and useless and her weapon slips from dead, shaking fingers.

She quivers and breathes, shakes out her numb hand, and hopes the problem is temporary.

She looks up the length of her attacker's body. From her perspective on the ground, the monster looms like a mountain. The sun behind it casts an eerie glow around it and paints the entire front of the creature in darkness.

She is going to die; the thought pisses her off.

She hears footsteps, looks through the monster's legs and catches a glimpse of Fang charging towards her. Fang leaps in the air, twirls her weapon and brings it down in a rush of unbridled fury. The attack catches the Cie'th at the juncture of shoulder and neck.

Black blood erupts as the Cie'th shrieks; blood rains down, coats Lightning's face and arms and kick-starts her into high-gear. Lightning grits her teeth through the pain in her arm and drags herself onto her feet.

The wounded Cie'th rounds on Fang and swipes with that massive club of an arm. It's speed is a surprise, but Fang manages to dodge. She ducks, rolls under and stabs again with the tip of her weapon. The Cie'th feints, lurches and catches Fang a glancing blow on a backswing.

The hit whips Fang around, stunning and staggering her. She curses and bleeds, tries to shake off the effects of the hit before the monster gains the upper hand. Lightning decides the time for standing around is over. She clenches her numb hand, feels the pain rattle up into her shoulder as dead nerves wake up and complain. She retrieves her weapon with tingling fingers, thumbs the switch for the blade and aims a sweeping strike at the backs of the Cie'th's knees.

The Edged Carbine is a superior weapon. The weight is perfect; the balance sublime. The metal of the blade is resistant to scratches and holds an edge without chipping, dulling or cracking. Lightning loves her weapon, feels more whole with it in her hand than she does at any other time in her life. She never doubts that it will do its job when she calls upon it. She never assumes it will fail.

It never has before, and it doesn't now.

The blade of the Edged Carbine severs skin, muscle, tendon and bone as if it were whipping through empty air. The Cie'th howls in agony as its legs are ripped from beneath it. Black, inky blood sprays in a fine mist over Lightning's body – drips into her cleavage, pools in her naval – as the monster crumbles to the ground in a howling tangle of flailing limbs. Fang stands stunned for no more than three heartbeats before spinning her weapon and bringing it down across the back of the monster's neck.

The Cie'th goes silent.

Lightning looks at Fang, sees the tremors running through her. Lightning pants around the new injuries, waits for the flush of victory to flood her. She watches the play of emotion over Fang's face and realizes that there is no triumph here; there's nothing to celebrate. Lightning's not certain when survival ceased being a victory in and of itself, but it has. Lightning feels empty and filthy, coated in the blood of a mindless, unwilling enemy. She feels stained.

She feels like a murderer.

She is a murderer. This Cie'th was a person. Considering their location, this person may have even once been Fang's friend.

Fang is bone white beneath the black blood.

Fang believes she just beheaded a friend; whether her beliefs are accurate is beside the point.

Lightning watches Fang's face run through a dozen different emotions before they all disappear under a whitewash. Fang is blank, and it is more frightening than anything she's ever seen. Lightning holds her breath and waits for an explosion...

"Look out!"

The warning strikes an instinctive chord in Lightning; her entire body is in motion before her brain catches up. She ducks an attacking arm, sweeps low as Fang goes high. There's a crunch and grunt followed by more gouts of blood and the crash of another body.

"We could use some help over here," Sazh yells.

Lightning looks around and freezes. There is an army of Cie'th on the horizon. Dozens – no! _Hundreds_ – of the monsters lope towards them. They are inexorable and infinite.

_Oh— _

She sprints, desperate to reach Sazh and the others before the horde descends upon them. It seems as if the entire population of Oerba – of Gran Pulse itself – has transformed into the dreaded monsters.

Her mind trips over the thought; she stumbles. It's like she's been smashed in the face with a two by four. She looks around again in horror as the idea distills into an absolute fact.

"What are you standing around for? Get moving!" Fang yells, grabs her arm and almost yanks her off her feet. "Come on, then! I've never seen this many of the buggers in one place," Fang says as she outstrips Lightning and charges for the thick of the battle. Lightning hopes that Fang's mind is so entrenched in survival that it doesn't draw the same conclusion she has anytime soon.

Lightning leaps for a Cie'th that is lumbering up behind Sazh, hits it high on the back with the edge of her weapon and rips a deep furrow into the thick, gray hide. The monster's wail alerts Sazh to its presence and he whirls and empties two barrels into the Cie'th's face. The head disappears in a mist of bone, blood and brain-matter that pours down on them like the most morbid precipitation Lightning's ever seen.

"Gross," Hope whispers and turns a vague shade of green. He wipes something chunky and wet from his face, shakes the spongy tissue from his fingers and looks horrified as he rubs his hand against the leg of his pants.

"You alright, Kid?"

"Oh yeah, I'm great!" Hope spits out. He throws Snow a nauseated look before hurling his Airwing into the fray. "You?"

"We've gotta make a break for it," Sazh says. "They just keep coming and coming."

"What's the situation, Sis?" Snow steps up beside Lightning, looking paler than death. There's blood leaking in snail trails down his face from beneath the edge of his bandana. He's shaking his head and blinking in an obvious attempt to focus his eyes. "Are we as screwed as I think we are?"

_Yep._

Lightning reaches into herself for a spell, feels the magic swirl up at her call in an intoxicating and terrifying way. She ignores all the reasons that casting is a terrible idea and focuses on healing Snow.

He's their frontline and he's about to collapse.

She touches his head as the magic reaches her fingertips. He turns wide, stunned eyes to her as the magic slides from her hand into his temple. She watches his eyes close in relief, stares in amazement as the color builds in his face, high on his sharp cheekbones.

Something shifts then.

Her consciousness scatters, is tossed from her body – herself. She is cast up and away. She is timeless. She is omniscient.

She is a god.

She sees people on the ground from the clouds' perspective – dust motes moving without direction or purpose, shadows and light twisting together, forming shapes and patterns like life or death. She looks down on mountains as if they were anthills, feels powerful enough to crush them with a thought. She stares into the shattered maw of Taejin's Tower and traces stress fractures along which walls buckled, sees grooves like claw marks gouged into ancient stone.

There's a deep scar in the ground where thousands of tons of stone scored the world, a scar on Pulse where Ragnarok cut a swath of destruction.

She follows the path.

She travels the whole of Gran Pulse in the blink of an eye. Sweeping cities, marvelous in magnitude, now crumble unattended. She can smell the death in each place, taste the sorrow that lines empty streets like cobblestone. Catastrophe blankets this world, inflicted in the name of vengeance by one sworn to protect.

It's ancient tragedy echoing through time.

It is a cycle, a wheel come round again. A wheel upon which the rest of humanity shall be broken.

She returns to herself, fingers on Snow's head, but thoughts everywhere at once.

They are surrounded, boxed in. The malice that is bent towards them is infinite, unrelenting. The Cie'th are of one mind, and that mind is determined to tear the l'Cie to pieces, to destroy the cause of all the suffering.

They smell the Destroyer – _their_ destroyer.

Something shifts again in a wave of vertigo.

She is no longer within and without at once. She is not one, but many . She sees the humans standing in a circle, backs to one another, fighting the onslaught. She watches them and _hates_.

_She sees the back of Fang's dark head, the grip of long, sure fingers around the staff of her ancient weapon and is filled with fury undiluted. Memory is gone. Anger needs no memory. Anger needs only will and intent._

_She smells something different in one – familiar and strong – and is drawn forward towards the green scent of magic and power. It is too bright and dark at once. It reeks with the stink of life – so foreign in this wrecked world. The offense cannot be abided. She raises her fist to crush the magic wielder, to sever the connection between it and the one that reeks of death and decay._

Lightning gasps and shoves Snow away from her. He goes flying as she spins and brings her blade upwards into the ribcage of the attacking Cie'th. She sinks the blade in to the hilt and then presses just that smallest bit further. She feels the strain in her wrists and shoulders as she twists the weapon. The Edged Carbine tears through the spine – cord and column –and right out the other side of the Cie'th. The monster collapses onto her blade like a broken puppet. Lightning feels her center of gravity shift at having to support the incredible weight of the paralyzed monster. She tries to jerk her weapon free of the falling body before it lands on her.

Snow appears beside her and catches the falling Cie'th with a grunt, holds it up long enough for her to pull the blade free from where it's caught between ribs and spine. The blade is black with blood and viscera. There's a strand of something Lightning guesses is some part of a lung hanging from the tip of her weapon. She flicks her wrist in hopes of shaking off the debris, but the goop clings with a tenacity she's never seen before.

"You good, Sis?" Snow grunts as the weight of the monster bends him in half. His face is red, vein prominent in his forehead. She steps out from under the collapsing weight, gets her hands around an arm in an attempt to lighten the load. She and Snow shift the weight around until he's clear as well, and then they shove.

The body lands with a thud; a wet slurp belches from the hole through the monster's gut, sends a sluggish drizzle of gore onto the ground. Snow grimaces, looks at Lightning with wide, focused eyes before taking stock of their situation.

"We're surrounded," he says with disbelief and anger. "We walked into a damned trap."

Lightning doesn't think the explanation is accurate, but it isn't wrong either. There's something about this whole situation that screams 'set up,' but she doesn't think these creatures have the higher brain function necessary to lay a trap.

Lightning didn't spend a long time rooting around in the mind of the Cie'th, but her mind still buzzes with the loathing and rage the monster felt. There's no room for any sort of planning with that magnitude of emotion. For these creatures, there's nothing but instinct and action.

"It doesn't matter how many we beat," Sazh gasps, reloading and firing into the onslaught. "Three more show up to replace it."

"We need to end this fast," Snow says. "Or else they will."

"I'm open to ideas," Lightning grits out as she dodges another attack. She hasn't had time to process her out-of-body experience yet, but she knows that it felt too real to be a hallucination. Furthermore, she realizes that even if they get as far as Oerba, they'll only find more Cie'th – stronger Cie'th – waiting for them. Turning back is out of the question as the road behind them is littered with the murderous monsters. They might be able to cut a path through them, but to what end? Going back to the tower spells death just as surely as moving forward. It'll just be a death of a more protracted variety.

In short, they are screwed.

She looks around at the faces of her friends and sees the bleak truth in their eyes; they've analyzed the situation and reached the same conclusion.

_Sorry, Serah._

That it'll end in this manner is infuriating. They've come so far on this journey only to be thwarted at the gates of Oerba.

Lightning assumes a battle stance. If this is the end, she will face it as she's faced everything else. If she is to die, she will do so as a warrior.

_Bring it on!_

Something in the air changes. The atmosphere gets thicker – almost unbreathable. The air is humid. Pungent. Everything reeks of sulfur. The breeze stops and the temperature plummets. Lightning shivers in the cooling air. The Cie'th all go still at once. Hope presses against Lightning's side, whispers something that she can't hear; the stillness steals the words. There's a shadow building, heavy and ominous as thunderclouds, but far more lethal. Lightning's skin crawls and puckers and she searches for the source of the strange disturbance.

She sees something like a vortex form at the heart of their circle, sucking in everything around it – including the air. Lightning feels lightheaded; Snow grabs onto her elbow and yanks her away from the building danger. She gets a handful of Hope's shirt and takes him with her. Hope stumbles into her, hitting her in her injured arm. She catches him before he topples, braces him up against her body as she watches the blackness grow.

And grow. And _grow_.

It's magic, she realizes, but she has never seen or felt its equal, and that includes in the presence of three fal'Cie and six eidolons. She looks at Fang, sees her lips moving. There's no sound escaping her, or, if there is, the magic devours it before it reaches human ears. Nothing can escape the singularity forming at the center of the darkness. Sazh grabs onto Fang and pulls her, struggling, away from the eye of the storm. It is then that Lightning realizes what – who – it is.

Vanille.

Vanille's spell is growing and building, swirling around her in visible waves of energy. The churning dark chaos reaches out with vortices to pluck Cie'th from the ground, sucks them in and then flings the carcasses as empty husks. Each one it snuffs out causes the central vortex to grow in size and strength; each discarded corpse is more desiccated than the last, until one falls only inches from where she stands and crumbles to dust at her feet.

Lightning screams, but there's no sound; the words are yanked from her throat as further fuel for this monstrous magic. Sazh drags Fang away, pulls her closer to where the rest of the group stands. Lightning reaches out and grabs Fang's arm, hauls her in until she's pressed against her. Snow crowds in further, and Hope gets a hold on Sazh. The five of them curl together, make a circle of flesh and blood: a sanctuary of life in the swirling death.

Snow pushes until they're on their knees, crouched like supplicants before an angry goddess.

They press together, create a bubble to house the air and life between them. They shrink into the teeniest ball possible, as if through force of will and strength they can survive this apocalypse.

They need to get as far away from the spell as they can, but they can't move, and they can't abandon Vanille. There's a good chance she's going to tear herself apart and they won't be able to save her. Lightning can't imagine how one body can hold or channel such power. Lightning has worked _big_ magic — _dangerous magic _— but she's never felt anything close to this sort of might. It's awful and wonderful. She wants to watch and cannot bear it.

She feels Fang exhale, but no air stirs her hair. She feels Hope sob against her neck but no tears touch her skin. All signs of life are being torn from the world, sucked from their bodies. Lightning doesn't know how long they'll be able to live if this spell continues to grow. She wonders if Vanille even has control anymore, or if she has been consumed by the death that she delivers.

The world gets dimmer; her head gets lighter as her body goes numb. She licks her cracked lips, tastes blood before it too gets sucked away to feed the maelstrom. She gasps a mouthful of hot, dry air. Her lungs seize.

There's a pain in her chest like a detonating grenade. She holds her breath, swallows a mouthful of dust, and curls around herself in an effort to stop the tearing – wrenching – shredding of her internal organs. She closes her eyes and her mouth and wills the spell out of her body.

Snow's head hits her injured shoulder. His grip on her goes lax and he slumps over, limp. She reaches for him, pulls him until his head is pillowed on her thigh. His skin is sallow again, eyes bruised, lashes a dark smear against white skin, and lips so chapped that they don't close over his teeth. He looks mummified; she realizes that they all will soon. Magic like this has no choice but to destroy everything.

Vanille has become Death.

All that loss and pain has twisted into the worst sort of strength.

Lightning jams two fingers into Snow's neck, holds her breath until she feels the faint, sluggish thud indicating a weak heartbeat. Alive, but not for long.

Lightning reaches for her weapon, considers the risks and consequences of a well placed bullet and decides that, however disgusting the idea, she's not going to have a choice. In a few moments, they will all be empty shells – dried up husks of flesh. She can't let Vanille kill them to save them.

That time may yet come, she knows, but she refuses to believe that it has arrived.

Before she makes the decision to murder her friend, the spell dissipates. Sound returns, and with it, the echo of bodies falling. Lightning inhales, exhales and hears a strange crackle, feels a snap in her chest. She coughs and tastes blood mixed in with the saliva and mucus; she spits the whole mess out onto the pulverized crystal.

The world is screaming its silence; death walked here, reaping everything in its indiscriminate and callous manner. The white crystal is stained with smears of black and a dusting of gray.

The tide of Cie'th has been obliterated by the small slip of a girl swaying in the slight breeze.

After a long moment, Fang pushes away from Lightning, worms her way out of the tangle of bodies and croaks out something that sounds like "Vanille!"

Sazh stands, wobbles, shakes his head and follows Fang. Hope's eyes are closed, sealed and scrunched as if he were a child hiding from horrific images. That's closer to the truth than she's admitted in a long while. Hope has seen far more death and destruction than she would have liked. She wishes that she could have protected him from this nightmare, but none of them are safe, and he's growing up far faster than a boy should.

If she could go back, she'd never have taken him from his home in Palumpolum. He should be in school or playing with friends. He should be with his father.

Of course, such an action would have condemned him to a premature death, and Palumpolum was purged in their wake.

It's lose/lose. She made the best – the only – possible choice.

She sighs, and clutches Hope's shaking body tighter to her. Just because it was the best choice, doesn't mean that it was a good one. Sometimes, all the options are terrible.

Snow shifts and groans and Lightning pats at his cheek until he opens crazed, wild eyes. He rolls his eyes around like a spooked animal, gets his bearings, swears and shifts himself upright.

"Wha's goin' on?" he slurs and she shakes her head. She doesn't trust herself to speak yet. Even if she did, she has no idea where to begin. She pulls a flask of water out, takes a sip and passes it Snow.

Lightning watches as Vanille takes in the destruction. She's paler than the crystal beneath her feet, dazed and shaking. A thin trail of blood sneaks from her nose. Fang puts a hand on Vanille's cheek; Vanille meets her eyes. Her brow furrows with confusion and she whispers, "Fang?" Her eyes roll back in her head and she collapses. Sazh catches her before she hits the ground, eases her the rest of the way.

Something rhythmic and sharp echoes through the stillness. Lightning's mind is sluggish and pained, but it almost sounds like...clapping?

"Beautiful! Absolutely marvelous!" Lightning's blood freezes at the familiar voice. Her breath catches on the gasp. "Can you smell that? Isn't it _wondrous_?"

Hope whimpers against her clavicle and she places a finger over his lips to keep him quiet. Snow shifts away from her. She hears him get to his feet to face the new threat.

She closes her eyes, swallows and prepares herself. She's spent months dreaming of this moment, a chance to right all the atrocities they've seen – a chance to avenge thousands of years of murder and manipulation.

Those dreams crumble to dust as she turns to face Barthandelus.

* * *

TBC...

Yes. I suck. I know it.

Vanille's Death spell was cool in the game, but far less dramatic than I'd have liked considering it did, like, a million hit points of damage.

I've FINALLY made it to Barthandelus. It only took...fifteen months. Unbelievable!  
Believe it or not, I've been planning on using the Legion quote since long before Mass Effect 2...but now it's even COOLER.


	31. The Seven Veils Part I

A/N - Nope, not dead folks. This chapter has been cut in half. Part two will be up in far less time than it took to get this part up.  
I'm currently in contract on a new home. Life in the fourth quarter of 2011 is going to be incredibly busy. Just because I'm not updating, doesn't mean I'm not working. Thanks for sticking with me.

* * *

"The inability to correctly perceive reality is often responsible for humans' insane behavior. "  
-Tom Robbins (Skinny Legs and All)

-The Seven Veils-  
Part I: The Fearful Trip

Weeks of fighting and surviving, of bloodshed and agony, of tension and depression, have all culminated in this one moment: this confrontation with the architect of their misery.

It should be a relief. Confronting and defeating Barthandelus is her penultimate goal, second only to saving her sister. This moment should be that first gasp of clean air after too much time beneath the water; it should be the slow burning stretch of a cramped muscle or the smooth slide of dislocated bone into its socket.

It should be a reprieve.

Instead, it is the setting down of the cross after carrying over miles of broken earth: a momentary respite filled with the promise of a slow, lingering death by crucifixion.

It's not at all a surprise when she thinks about it. She knew today would be a horrible day; knew there would be catastrophe and tragedy waiting at the end of the long and winding road. She remembers reflecting on their bedraggled state and the dread that gut-punched her hard enough to steal her resolve. She would believe that she developed some gift of precognition, but she knows that's crap.

It's not prognostication or even bad luck; it's the endgame of a flawless plan.

Oerba was always going to be their doom: the end of a death march on a dead planet. She knows it now, and curses herself for not realizing it before.

Pulse is the forge in which they were crafted and the whetstone upon which they were honed. It's the dirt into which they were ground, and it is the earth in which they'll be buried.

Her resolve hardens and her mind stills. Lightning presses Hope away from her, stands and draws her weapon. If this is to be her end then she refuses to meet it on her knees. If it is to be their end, she intends for them to face it and embrace it together.

"Well met!" The tone holds none of the irony the words deserve. "It's been so long since our last meeting, and here you all are!"

Hope shifts, glances around and stills. His quiet courage makes her ache with pride.

"Nothing to say?" Lightning hears the taunt, refuses to acknowledge it. She's proud that the others resist as well. "Not even a respectful greeting for your master?"

Her face gets so hot it dries her eyes out, leaves them stinging and raw. The rapid throb of her pulse in her temples sets her eyelid twitching in irritating counterpoint.

So much for restraint.

"You're not anyone's master!" Snow shouts and poises to attack.

The declaration draws Barthandelus' full attention. He narrows his eyes and gives a slow smirk that traces a chill up her spine.

Her breath catches at the cloud of _intent_ that descends. The world distills, filters. Everything falls away except for the blood thrumming through her, the spark of violent anticipation in watery eyes and the glint of sun off rows of pointed teeth.

Something terrible is about to happen.

_An example must be made._

The words startle her, make her jump. She twists and swats at whomever crept up on her. Rounds on the threat with her full arsenal.

Finds only empty space behind her.

Disquiet usurps everything in that moment. The chasm between reality and perception widens to an uncomfortable degree; a _noticeable_ degree. There's always disparity, she knows, but it usually minute: a filtering of facts through emotion, of geometric patterns through senses.

This teeters on the brink of full-on hallucination.

And yet...

She could feel the breath of the whispered words against the shell of her ear. Breath is not a ghost sensation – it's full of heat and moisture. Voice and sound are not functions of the mind – they involve vibrations and frequencies.

She knows both what she heard and its point of origin and yet the truth belies her senses. There's no one there.

Of course there's no one there. The voice belonged to Barthandelus, and he's better than a dozen meters before her.

_Are you so sure? _

A cheap parlor trick. She's too good to flinch, too proud to look again; fool her once, and all that jazz. Lightning's many things, but she's no one's fool.

So perhaps it was Barthandelus, or her own inner voice. Maybe the thought is a remnant of her connection to the Cie'th collective consciousness, or perhaps she's still hearing voices of those ancient condescending statues whispering in her mind. The source is irrelevant.

The meaning is what matters.

She looks over at the fal'Cie and senses the stalled violence in his stance. She glances at Snow, takes in the dark smudges beneath his eyes and the tremor in his frame that might be from rage.

Except it isn't. There's an icy certainty sweeping from her guts whispering that Snow is not in any condition to hurl himself headfirst at a fal'Cie.

"Am I not?" Barthandelus asks with an arched brow.

_Smug bastard. _She'd love nothing more than to unload her weapon into his face and watch his head explode like a piñata.

She exhales and refocuses. Barthandelus drew her into the last battle by baiting her. She can't afford distraction. Something gnaws at her, annoys her like a toothache or ingrown toenail. There's something important niggling at her.

_An example, _someone whispers in her ear, her mind, and her eyes turn towards their resident Hero.

There's blood oozing over Snow's lip, dripping in slow, steady trails from his nose. He wipes the back of his hand under his nose, smearing blood across his knuckles, painting the twisted knots of bone crimson. Her breath hitches—

—_and Snow's hand is a flap of meat and pulverized bone. The air reeks of blood and bowel and the ozone tang of discharged magic. Air whistles through the holes in Snow's body as he gurgles around the blood in his lungs. There's a rattle coming from within him – a death rattle – and no matter how hard she presses on the wounds, she can't stanch the gush of hot blood over her fingers. His eyes go unfocused and glassy, and he exhales for a final time._

Death blows frigid breath against her neck, her whole body breaks out in goose flesh, and she _knows_.

She knows the words whispered in her head like a lover's secret are true; she needs no proof. Her mind may be fracturing, but her instincts are solid.

There's no explanation in sight. Logic has long since packed up all its stuff and relocated to a better neighborhood. Probably one with less bloodshed and insanity. She doesn't expect to see it again.

Well, screw logic right in its ear! What has it done for her anyway?

She ignores the irrationality of the feeling and accepts that if she doesn't act right now, there'll never be another chance. The last time Death turned its gaze their way, there was no time; she failed to act and Snow died beneath her hands. That she saved him was one part determination, one part miracle and two parts blind, stupid luck.

Oh yeah! Let's not forget the large chunk of her soul she sacrificed in working that magic. She's pretty sure that there's not enough leftover to do it again.

Lightning grabs Snow and yanks him backwards. He shrugs her off harder than necessary, but she latches on once again and digs her jagged nails into his arm, wills him to just use his head. Just one time she'd like him to lead with his brains instead of his balls. That's not so much to ask, is it?

"Don't be stupid," she whispers, harsh with a hint of begging. "He's baiting you. Don't give him what he wants."

Snow growls, grits his teeth and clenches his fists tighter. The muscles beneath her hand cord with anger, tense to the point where she believes they're going to tear right from the bones – snap like over-tightened guitar strings.

She holds her breath with the same tenacity that she holds his arm. Something's going to break here, and she's worried that something is going to be Snow's neck. She tugs on his arm, hopes that he'll snap out of his fog of rage.

It's a long moment before he relents. Muscles uncoil inch by inch, transform from granite to flesh beneath her fingers. She winces at the dry sound of tooth grinding down tooth, and the wet sound of popping joints. She keeps her grip on his arm as he subsides, then counts out another five seconds before letting go.

She blows out her relief and draws another measure of air to steady herself.

She pats his arm in a useless gesture of reassurance – more her own than Snow's, she'll admit – and it twitches beneath her fingers. She puts some distance between them and turns her attention toward the enemy.

Hope steps into her periphery and plants himself between her and Snow. He reaches back for his Airwing, but doesn't draw it. Fear and anger roll off him in tangible waves.

The whole situation is a lit powder keg: any second, there will be a catastrophic explosion.

Lightning tightens her grip on the Edged Carbine and lets the world drop away a piece at a time until the whole of reality comprises her companions, her enemy, her body and her weapon.

Silent moments pass in an odd, frozen tableau. Lightning feels sweat ease over her spine in snail trails. It dampens her shirt and makes her itch. Time passes at a glacial pace, seconds dragging out into minutes. The muscles in her body burn under the strain of holding still.

She doesn't understand why they're all just standing around. Violence still hangs in the atmosphere like a static charge, but no one seems inclined to do anything to discharge or ground it.

The whole situation makes her teeth ache.

"Look at you all!" The words are a starter pistol shattering the silence. Relief and adrenaline-soaked anxiety flood her body, make every organ quiver like gelatin.

She exhales a juddering breath; anything is better than the stillness.

"I must say that I never expected _all_ of you to make it to Oerba. Gran Pulse usually swallows humans whole. I thought for sure the Steppe, the Caverns or even the Tower might thin out the herd a bit."

"Sorry to disappoint you," Snow quips, and Sazh punctuates the sentiment by cocking his pistols.

"Disappoint? Oh...not so!" The fal'Cie declares with a grin. "I am well pleased."

"What a relief!" Sazh retorts with his trademark sarcasm. "Because I've been damn concerned all this time that we might not please you." He wipes the back of one hand across his forehead. "I feel so much better now."

Vanille giggles, startling _everyone_. All eyes flicker to her and her cheeks redden.

"Sorry," she mumbles and wraps pale shaking fingers around her Tiger's Claw.

Once upon a time, Lightning might have thought the giggle proof of Vanille's total vacancy. First impressions had Lightning convinced that Vanille was flighty and more than a bit dim. The past few weeks have proved that inital assessment beyond inaccurate. Vanille's ding-bat persona is a mask – a clever routine – to divert people's attention, and she's a very skilled actress. By behaving like an empty-headed bimbo, Vanille has managed to evade the more pressing and uncomfortable questions everyone puts to Fang. It's beautiful, impressive and manipulative as all hell. It's so well executed that Lightning still forgets from time to time how many secrets Vanille has kept from the group by fluttering around them like a hummingbird, and giggling like a toddler.

So, no – Vanille's not giggling out of idiocy or frivolity; it's a stress reaction, pure and simple, and it is one to which Lightning can relate. After all, if the here-and-now doesn't qualify as a laugh-or-cry scenario, Lightning doesn't know what does.

"Regardless of your intentions, Mr. Katzroy," Barthandelus says, "I remain pleased."

Lightning's urge to retort disappears into a tide of confusion. She sways for a moment, feels a bit like she received a painless impromptu lobotomy. The world dims, brightens, blurs and refocuses; cycles through the feelings until her senses of time and direction abandon her.

Conversation continues; a minute ticks away.

It starts in her lips as a numbness, and spreads outward over her face. She opens her mouth to suck in a breath, feels the air crackle and burst like pop rocks in her lungs. There's a pinpoint of pain behind her eyes that expands like an inflating balloon. Each dilation of the pain causes a constriction of her field of vision. She tries to blink it away, but it feels as if her consciousness is being sucked out of her through her pupils while her whole body unknots against her will.

Her fingers loosen, her knees wobble. She can't get a full breath into her which only exacerbates the overall weakness.

_Not now, _she begs, but she knows it's futile. Hell, she's not certain she even means it at this point. There's only so much stress a mind can take and she's pretty positive she passed her vertical limit about three weeks back. She's never had any control during an episode before, and she has even less control over herself now. Her entire focus is reaching a singularity and is drawing everything into it. Acid spirals in her gut hard enough to work its way up her throat. There's a hornet's nest in her skull: her ears buzz with them, and the hundreds of stings disperse poison throughout her mind.

She breathes through her nose, feels something wet churning in her sinuses.

_Get a grip._

She blinks against the encroaching darkness and tries to breathe around the rock lodged in her trachea.

"You okay, Light?" Hope whispers. She can feel his gaze on her, and she glances at him out of the corner of her eye. His eyes are pinned to her, radiating concern. It's bad enough that she's off-kilter, but she's distracting Hope too. That might get him killed and _that_ is unacceptable.

"Eyes on the threat, Hope."

"But—"

"Hope," she interrupts, injecting as much urgency as she can without veering into hysteria, but since Hope's eyes are round and unblinking, and his mouth hangs open in a large 'O,' she figures she failed. He complies with her order a second too late to cover the shock, but he does, in fact, comply. And that's all that matters to her.

She takes her own advice and concentrates on the enemy in their midst. Galenth Dysley – _Barthandelus_ – meets her eyes and smirks. She gets the unsettling feeling that the old monster can read her thoughts.

His smile widens and he winks.

Her vision tunnels as pale blue eyes bore into hers. There's a strange burning odor preceding a heaviness in her limbs. Confusion sloughs off like dead skin and she shakes her head to try and escape the magic being cocooned around her. She calls on her own power – on her magic, on her training, on Odin – but nothing helps her.

She's _terrified. _

Her breath sticks to her lungs like melting candle wax, and her head swims from the lack of air. She feels his hands all over her, fingers digging around inside her – violating the sanctity of her body and mind. She can't hear anything over her struggle for breath. Her heart rages in her chest until she thinks it might explode. Her muscles ignite.

She's drowning on dry land.

She struggles like an insect in tree sap. Each thrash binds her tighter, draws her deeper into the magic. Barthandelus' gaze drags her down and under like a riptide, sucking her farther away from herself.

A needle of agony skewers her brain and radiates outward like a mushroom cloud. It is like the sum total of every episode she's had at once. The pain steals all control of her body, washes everything black then white until the world is veiled. It goes on and on. She wonders if she's bleeding.

She wonders if she's dying.

She hears popping and explosions and figures that her body is coming apart in her struggles against the paralysis. All her joints feel shredded; all the muscles feel like they're stripping off the bones.

She's turning inside out and there's no breath left for howling.

The end, when it comes, is as sudden as heart failure. The release is almost worse than the capture: it's hooks through cheeks, bleeding, thrashing and suffocating, dead but for the mercy of a god.

She hits the ground like a dead bird. Pulverized crystal sticks into the skin of her shins, knees and palms. She fists her hands, grabs onto the cutting world and follows the hurts like a trail of breadcrumbs back to herself.

The first gasp hurts like birth.

Her diaphragm spasms. She chokes and gags on air, blood and mucus. It's too much at once, and she cough – gasp – retches. But between the choking and spitting, the nose-running and eye-watering, her head clears a bit. She folds in on herself, balls around the wreckage of her body. Her muscles all twitch and flutter beneath her skin: silent protests to the wrenching tension. She blinks tears and blood out of her eyes, stares at the sparkles of color shimmering through the white grit beneath her knees and just breathes.

"Lightning!"

She flinches and shies away from the voice. She needs a minute to shake off the assault and get her bearings. She's flying apart and she needs to find all the unraveled bits of herself and patch them back together.

Can't he see that? Is it too much to ask that Hope stand on his own for now and leave her alone to stitch herself together again?

"Light!" Fingers curl over her shoulders, grip and shake her hard. The feel of hands – fingers – gripping at her snaps the final gossamer thread of her control, shreds through her humanity straight to the wounded animal within. She growls and shoves hard.

Hope yelps as he hits the ground. The cry yanks her out of her head just enough to see past the void growing within her. Hope pulls himself out of the gravel and blows on his bleeding hands.

"Sorry." The apology is pale and dishonest. She's not sorry. Not really. The thought of anyone touching her right now makes her skin crawl. She has no idea what Barthandelus did to her, but she knows that she feels...violated. Contaminated by his evil on a cellular level. There's no showering it off, or coughing it out. Moreover, she's not certain that the yawning chasm within won't swallow everyone else – won't poison and consume them.

She doesn't know anything at all. So, she's not sorry for shoving Hope off her, but that doesn't mean she wanted to hurt him.

"Yeah, right," he says with a sneer. He meets her eyes and seems to make a decision. He nods at her, "Yeah, okay. I know."

She must really look horrible if he's forgiving her already. She considers him for a moment.

Screw it. She's not going to question the one good thing that's happened to her today.

She pulls herself off the ground and the world twitches. Or her brain does. She puts her hand to her forehead and waits out the dizziness that's not really dizziness.

It's a Vanishing. A curtain being drawn, or a veil being dropped.

She shakes off the feeling and looks around. There's something that looks like a large impact crater where Barthandelus was standing, but the old monster is nowhere in sight. Anxiety knots in her stomach.

_Where...?_

Her eyes dart around, peer through the fog over her vision. Sazh's guns are smoking, Fang's pulling Vanille off the ground and Snow is hovering in her periphery nursing a bleeding fist.

Did she miss the battle? Is that possible? Did they...win?

She touches her temple with trembling fingers, presses against the echo of pain. Feels another piece break off and disappear.

She should chase it, catch it, try to fit it back into place, but she's just so...tired.

_Screw it!_ she thinks and settles for speaking instead. "What happened?"

The pause stretches one beat past dramatic, souring the whole tempo. Making it suspicious.

"Snow punched that old bastard right back to Cocoon," Hope says with something like pride. She smells the green, living scent of healing magic and turns in time to watch the skin of Snow's hand knit up. He ruffles Hope's hair with the healed hand. Hope ducks away but doesn't scowl at Snow.

It's all _wrong_.

Oh, she can't pinpoint anything wrong with Hope's reaction. His voice is right, the cadence is correct; the glint in his eyes holds just the right combination of bitchery and mischievousness. It's all fine, and yet it feels off.

It's not just Hope either. Everything feels off to her. Distorted, and off-center, like she's looking up at the sky from the bottom of a lake. She knows that she's nowhere near her A-game right now. She feels bruised and brain-damaged. Her body feels like a wrung-out rag. It's possible everything makes perfect sense and it's only _she_ who is backwards.

And yet—

"Seriously?" She can't keep the disbelief from her tone.

"Gee, Sis," Snow deadpans. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"No," she stammers. Her lips are numb and still taste of blood. She wipes a hand under her nose and it comes away clean. She scowls at her fingers, shakes her head to clear it. She looks back at Snow and he squints at her. Her vision wavers like the air over too-hot asphalt. She blinks, fights the light-headedness before it puts her on her ass. Her brain feels muddled – like someone took a meat tenderizer to it. She chases the threads of her thoughts like balloon strings through a park. She finally snags them, but they feel flimsy and nonsensical.

It's like trying to do long division in a dream.

"It's not that..." she starts. Except, it is _that_. It's exactly that! How the hell could Snow just punch Barthandelus in the face and that be the end of it? It's not possible. It's...ridiculous!

"Well, Sazh worked some beautiful magic with those guns of his too, if that makes you feel better," Snow declares.

She looks over at Sazh and he smiles at her. Does that make her feel better?

She considers for a moment: a powerful fal'Cie – the most powerful fal'Cie – defeated in moments by Snow and Sazh and their human weapons.

_Yeah; no! No, that doesn't make me feel better at all._

"It doesn't make sense," she whispers. Sazh scowls at her and the pain returns to her head in force. She hears shouting: too many voices mix together like some sort of angry town meeting turned riot. The air reeks of an amalgam of discharged magic. It's overwhelming to her overwrought senses. She tries to put her hands over her ears and double over, but she can't move.

"You never were one to do things the easy way. Never one to just _accept._" Hot breath tickles her ear, makes her jerk. She feels fingers at her throat, an arm banded across her. A throaty chuckle fills her ears as it vibrates through her from the body pressed against the length of her back. Her whole being rebels at the touch of this creature.

"I usually like that about you, Claire, but right now..."

She's through the looking glass staring outward. Everything is backwards to her, trapped as she is in this monster's grip. There are worms beneath her skin and bugs gnawing at the inside of her head. She struggles and he tightens the fingers on her throat in warning. She stops moving when her head swims, and he whispers, "good girl" into her ear.

"Sis," Snow says and she rolls her eyes over to him. "You're going to be okay."

The reassurance rings hollow but she feels better all the same.

Empty promises are all they have left at this point.

"Let her go!" Sazh demands, guns pointed right at her. His forehead is creased under the weight of his scowl. "Now!"

"Come, come," Barthandelus echoes. "You're embarrassing yourself with this posturing. We all know that you're not going to risk killing little Claire. Not even to get to me." The monster cuts off her air again with a squeeze, and shakes her a bit for good measure. She can hear his pleasure in his next words: "Why don't you just put your weapons down, hmm? And we can have a civilized conversation. Or as civilized a conversation as one might have with maggots. I did not come here to fight."

"Sure you didn't," Fang quips. "Pull the other one."

Fingers clamp tighter around her throat and she watches the world fade. She smells blood.

"Just...do what he says," Snow orders, voice steady.

_No! _There are no words for how much Lightning disagrees with Snow's decision.

Sazh hesitates and glances at Fang. She purses her lips and tilts her head. Considering her options, Lightning knows. She finally nods and lowers her Bladed Lance. "Right then. You heard the hero."

Lightning goes boneless in defeat.

Sazh meets Lightning's eyes and she can see his indecision. He's pragmatic enough to realize that lowering his weapons will not buy her life; refusing, however, might save his own.

Sazh always was the smart one.

_Don't do it, _she prays.

"Sazh!" Snow shouts. Sazh grimaces and lowers his weapons. "Alright, they're down. Now let her go."

The hand around her throat eases its grip. She can feel him chuckle.

"Never," Barthandelus murmurs. "I'll never let you go, but you already knew that, didn't you?"

She feels the fear again, bright and sharp as razor blades digging into her veins.

"There there, little Claire." She shivers as his nail traces her jugular. She flinches and he sighs. "I've always been quite fond of you." Her body goes numb as he whispers to her. She's not certain if it's his presence, his words, his magic or some combination of the three, but her body is falling away from her.

And she's caught and transfixed by the honey-coated horror of his voice.

"From the first moment I saw you, I just knew you were special. You don't remember, I'm sure." He almost sounds disappointed. "Well, you wouldn't, would you?" He chuckles at his own private joke.

"But I remember. It was abysmal, all those..._humans_ just milling about. The stench of them all!" He growls in her ear, and she feels it rattle against her back. Her stomach churns and her head pounds. "And then there you were! Just on the cusp of womanhood and already so full of fire. I knew you were special from the moment I saw you. You were almost as disgusted as I by the savagery. There was just something about you..." He purrs the words and she shudders. His voice goes icy, and so does her body. "But there were so many distractions."

She shakes her head in confusion and throws a tentative glance over her shoulder. She finds she can't tear her eyes from his when they meet.

His blue-gray eyes paralyze her.

"You had such potential." _Potential?_ She doesn't understand what he's saying; she doesn't want to understand. There's a bright pain where she's chewed through her lower lip, and the copper tang of fresh blood on her tongue. A puff of breath in her ear sends a tremor down the length of her spine. "But there were so many obstacles."

_Don't ask. Don't entertain it: it's what he wants._

She can't stop the question from slipping out: "Obstacles?"

He smirks at her – a cold, cruel thing – and she could chew her own tongue off for falling into his trap. He raises an eyebrow at her, and keeps his tone casual as he says, "your parents, for instance."

Her parents? She doesn't understand, except—

Her breath catches and she meets Snow's horrified eyes. He shakes his head at her. She sees his lips moving, his face turning red with shouting but she can't hear. Hope's wide green eyes are wet and frightened, and she wants to help him but there's something connecting up in her mind and she can't hide from it any longer.

—_there's choking overlaying beeping, useless platitudes and empty apologies sputtered by ineffective people in white coats. The world is antiseptic and sterile with the subtle stench of decay beneath it all. And she is young – oh yes! – but not so young that she doesn't understand what the doctor's aren't saying when they rattle off the words 'Unknown Pathogen' and 'Ineffective Treatments' at her. Her world is ending and they're dying, and nothing is going to save them. And the doctors don't know what, where, why, or how, but they do know who. And the unknown pathogen – never seen before or since – is killing her parents. Only her parents. It's liquefying their organs, tearing them apart piece by piece, and drowning them slowly in their own body fluids. She cursed the Maker for destroying her life, swore vengeance the day it ended when they sent her home to her baby sister without an explanation. Without even a body to bury for closure—_

Barthandelus laughs as she screams in her rage. She tastes blood again and this time swallows it down. She tears herself apart to get away from him while he laughs. She needs her weapon! She tightens her fingers and muscle memory takes over. Fang roars and leaps, Snow charges and Sazh fires his weapons.

There's a tensing of muscles, and a painful recoil that rattles her whole body. Hope shouts a denial when Snow flies backwards through the air. She smells exploded gunpowder and blood.

Her throat is raw, bleeding from the screams. Her muscles twist and wrench as she fights against restraining arms. She feels give, and she thrashes, bites. There's laughing and shouting all blending together like a discordant opera. Her head spins, her vision shrinks, and she cries out for an end—

Her eyes burn and she blinks, and the center of the universe is Barthandelus' cruel smirk. Her body hurts from holding still too long, poised with her weapon cocked and aimed.

Another splintering; another vanishing. Another veil.

_Fool me twice, shame on me._

Lightning spends a moment breathing and staring. Everything just jumped tracks on her and she's terrified and hopeful in equal measures. Her skin still feels as if it wants to crawl away, but her heart is steadier. She feels wrong to the ends of her hair.

It's like reality just hiccupped.

"—your progress is miraculous, and your powers are," he looks around at the ash and blood smeared landscape, "extraordinary. I've lived for millennia. I've seen hundreds of l'Cie branded, and watched each one fail. You humans are ever so—"

"—Disappointing," he yells into her ear as the hand around her throat chokes off her air again. "I'd expected your rage to blossom after your parents died. I expected..."

She hears Hope yell something that snags her attention. She seeks him out, and sees Snow's limp body in the middle of an impact crater, surrounded by a halo of his own blood. There's a wound in his chest leaking blood like a sieve. She feels a cold certainty that he's dead and that it's her fault. She doesn't know how or why, but she knows it like she knows the weight of her weapon: her fragile hold on her own sanity has finally cost Snow his life.

"You should have housebroken that one, Claire. Perhaps then I wouldn't have had to teach him quite so hard a lesson."

Vanille kneels beside Hope and takes his hands and whispers something. Hope shakes his head, yanks his hands from her grasp, presses them to Snow's chest and the healing magic flares. Hope snarls, "No! I'm not giving up. Help me!" and Vanille capitulates. She adds her own magic to the mixture and Lightning's skin prickles with the charge in the air. Barthandelus loosens his grip on her throat, all his attention fixated on the magical spectacle and Lightning realizes that this demonstration was the point.

He hurt Snow to see how they'd react. Barthandelus is still testing them like lab animals.

He's a kid with an ant farm and magnifying lens. There's no reason to conduct the experiments except to watch them all burn.

They live only at his pleasure, and their annihilation is all he's ever wanted.

Grief melts into relief when Snow's finger twitches. Then his arm. She can't think beyond the gratitude. The magic flows until he rouses and groans, and Hope helps to drag him to an upright position.

She sees the blood stain high on his side and wonders how many mortal wounds he can sustain before his body craps out on him. She considers the wreckage of her own transformed body and figures it doesn't matter anymore.

None of them are getting out of this alive.

"I'll say this for him," Barthandelus gloats. "He's tenacious. Like a cockroach. Or a virus. They're so very hard to kill."

"Sounds familiar," Fang says, and Barthandelus snorts.

"I always did like your spunk," he replies. "I really thought you were a winner. But you were a disappointment like all the rest. All that power and rage, and somehow you just couldn't deliver."

The grin is all gnashed teeth and blood-coated wrath. "Can't say I'm sorry about that."

"Oh, well we both know that's not true, don't we? And even if it were, you're sorry now." She feels his laugh like it's tearing from her own throat. "Oh, are you ever! The moment you clapped eyes on Oerba, you were sorriest little l'Cie ever yanked from stasis."

"Don't listen to him," Sazh says.

"No worries. He talks and talks, and doesn't say a bloody thing."

"I can taste it, it's so potent." Lightning tastes it – it's greasy ash, salt and stone; it's metallic blood and rotting meat. She wants to vomit but she can't get anything past the words in her throat. In the air.

"There was that gnawing dread that grew with every ruin you visited. It's why you begged off so often and stayed behind to babysit. Because part of you already knew the dirty little secret. Do they know it yet?"

"Why don't you let the lady go and we can settle this, then?" Lightning can feel the rage and frustration pouring off Fang. The whole world is bitter and crimson with it. Fang's not built for waiting. Like Lightning, Fang is a woman of action, and being forced to play Barthandelus' game must chafe her like a tight pair of wet boots.

"They don't. How marvelous!" The world turns yellow with glee before it peels away to leave things dingy. "Perhaps we should tell them."

"There's nothing you have to say that we need to hear, Monster," Sazh says. "And there's nothing you can tell us about Fang that makes any difference."

"Really? Isn't he sweet? No wonder he's your very favorite." Fang startles and Sazh's brow furrows.

Their shock delights Barthandelus. She can feel it vibrate through her, see it in the changing skyline.

"What do you say, Fang? Think he's right? Do you believe that nothing matters? Because I don't think you believe any such thing."

"Stop it!" Vanille squawks. She's ghostly beneath the blush of anger and Lightning realizes what speaking must have cost her.

She's still weak from that spell. She needs to shut up or she'll get herself hurt. There's still a lesson to be taught today, and Snow's was not nearly hard enough to suit Barthandelus.

The monster pays Vanille no heed.

"I mean, you knew that all this..." fingers dance around the air in an all-encompassing gesture, "destruction was on you. But that tiny flicker of hope didn't extinguish until you got here. Until poor little Vanille," he stabs a finger in Vanille's direction, "wept over it all the acres of devastation. Then you knew the price of your failure."

Fang pales and wavers but doesn't crack. Lightning has known for a while the measure of her friend's strength, but this display awes her all the same. Fang manages to shake it off and pull out a smirk. "You finished? Think you just made a big revelation? Hmm? Think rubbing all that in my face is gonna break me?"

"Oh no," Barthandelus says. "I've never underestimated you. " He pauses and considers. "Overestimated, perhaps...but no, my dear. Make no mistake. If I wanted to, I know full well how to break you." He pauses and Lightning finds her gaze drawn to Vanille. She recoils, horrified that she's given him ammunition. "But why ever would I wish to break such a lovely thing as you?"

"Why not? You've got your prize right there."

"Indeed," he hums a pleased sound. "She is something, isn't she?" A hand trails over her hip, familiar enough cause a crack in the paling. And for a moment she can almost touch something...

But she blinks and it's gone, and she meets her friend's disgusted eyes. But Fang is stronger and more dogged than anyone Lightning knows and she refuses to be thrown off track.

"So what do you need me for, then? Or the rest of us for that matter."

"It's simple. I hedge my bets. It's why I win. You, my dear, are—"

"—the first to exceed all expectations." There's a whitewash over her vision, like she's looking at everything through a veil. She thinks of bridal gowns.

"You've all flourished where others have crumbled. You overcame insurmountable odds to emerge victorious. Pulse is a wheel, you see, and on it most are broken. You've seen the wreckage of most – the pathetic crystals and lumbering monsters."

She thinks of funeral shrouds.

She tries to gather the pieces of herself together before anyone notices that she's shattering, but she's afraid that moving at all will spin her world off axis again.

She wonders if she's still trapped in that paralyzing spell, or if that spell even existed in the first place. If it did, then is this – facing off with Barthandelus, right here and now – reality? If it is, how did she get here? Or is she really trapped in his grip, held prisoner by him? Is she really helpless and immobilized?

Is she already long gone?

"So that all of you have survived, and grown so mighty! It's more than I ever dreamed. And as if that weren't enough, you all gave me a long desired gift!"

"Now I know you're just cracked," Fang sneers. "Ranting about nonsense, and burning all this lovely daylight. Let's just get on with it already. I have places to be."

"Fang," Vanille's voice quavers, and Lightning realizes it's the first time she's spoken – in any reality. "We can't..."

"'S'alright. It's all gonna be fine, love."

"Lying to the bitter end," Sazh mumbles.

And it feels real, so maybe she's the imposter. Maybe she's the piece that doesn't fit into the puzzle. She gasps at the tremor that runs through her.

"Cracked? But my dear, you all eliminated the proverbial thorn in my side. The fly in my ointment." He looks right at Hope. "You killed Dahaka for me. No small feat."

"Wha—"

"There was no choice," Snow scoffs.

"Of course there wasn't," Barthandelus agrees. "Choice is an illusion."

_Illusion._ Her mind stalls on the word.

"It always has been. You've never had a choice. Not from the moment you were branded. Not from birth."

"I have a choice I can make right now! If us killing fal'Cie makes you so happy, how about we make your day by offing you?" Fang asks, twirling her weapon. "It's about time we just killed each other already. I'm pretty tired of all this yapping."

"All in good time, my—"

"—dear. You're positively quivering," an oily voice whispers in her ear. She struggles to breathe around the tightening claw on her throat. She fights against the limbs restraining her and the hold tightens like a constricting serpent. There's a slow trickle of air keeping her alive and clinging to consciousness with torn fingernails.

She almost wishes she'd slip. At least then the whirlwind of lunacy would end. At least she'd finally have some quiet in her mind.

"I thought for sure your rage would blossom in the wake of your parents' untimely deaths. I designed them to be ever-so-gruesome. It was a nasty little life form crafted for a singular purpose. And it, like you, surpassed all my hopes. You were so close that day in the lonely rain, weren't you?" She struggles against the restraining hands, but she might as well be trapped in an iron maiden. "I set you on a slow boil then, but I miscalculated. I underestimated little Serah's hold on you."

The world goes red and black at the mention of her sister's name. "You don't get to say her name."

Barthandelus laughs like Lightning is just the funniest thing _ever, _before continuing. "She was so fragile and inconvenient. Admit it, Claire. She just _had_ to go! You're stronger and better without her. She was a weakness: a cancer that I excised."

The ensuing struggle is brilliant and awful. She can't take a breath for the pressure around her ribs. Her lungs start to burn and her body follows suit. There's laughter filling her ears – his, hers, theirs – but she can't hear it through the shrieking. Her blood turns to acid in her veins. There's shouting and denials, but she ignores them all. Hang them all! All she can think about is ripping out Barthandelus' tongue for speaking her sister's name. She wants him dead. It seems that it's all she's ever wanted! He is a monster, a traitor. He's the—

"—Abomination! That's what Dahaka always felt about l'Cie. So of course he tried to eliminate you."

"We had no choice," Hope sputters. "We didn't want to..."

"Well, of course you didn't, child." Which is not strictly true. Lightning wanted to kill Dahaka; she wanted to very much. It was the first real victory after a long string of near misses and it felt fantastic! Dahaka's death didn't sadden her. The fact that she wasn't upset was the only disturbing part of the fal'Cie's death for her.

Further proof of her descent.

Of course, Barthandelus already knows. He knows everything, it seems.

"I would never imply otherwise. You're a good boy. Dahaka was never one to suffer l'Cie to live. And you all were a double insult! As the protector of humanity, it was his duty to destroy any threat."

_/Abominations...Traitors.../_

"We're not a threat to humanity." Hope's voice cracks under the weight of the implication. Barthandelus gives him a cruel smile.

_/Defilers.../_

"Of course you are, foolish boy! It's why Dahaka attacked you. It's why they all attack you. It's why even the horde of mindless creatures here felt compelled to destroy you." He laughs with mad glee. "Because they can smell it, you see. You're the bringers of death. You'll end Cocoon, and with it, all humanity. It's your focus and fate."

_/Destroyer.../_

"Yeah, well that ain't happening," Snow shouts.

"Indeed? We'll see, won't we. After all, I do have—"

"—Insurance? No, you're more than just insurance." Barthandelus' voice mocks and soothes at once. "Besides, if I were to name one person insurance, that would probably be..." he points at Vanille and snickers, "her."

"Don't you even look at her!" Sazh shouts. Fang's lip quirks up in a small smile. Barthandelus hums with interest. "Interesting."

"She's insurance that you – both of you, it seems – will do as I say."

"You're not using her for anything," Hope says and Barthandelus chuckles and claps with mad glee.

"Isn't this fun? Apparently, your stock has tripled my dear. So, perhaps the better term for her is _leverage_. She insures nothing by just standing there, but a threat to her? That assures your absolute obedience. Three-fold now. Doesn't it?"

"Get stuffed!" Fang replies and throws in a vulgar hand-gesture to boot.

"So colorful!" He sounds delighted. "Oh but don't be like that, my dear. She's not the only leverage I have! Take little Serah, for instance. She's quite a valuable commodity herself. Her 'eternal life' guarantees the cooperation of little Claire. And, of course, that oaf of a hero."

The mention of Snow brings him to his feet. His skin is chalk white beneath the bloodstains. She has no idea how he can stand. "I swear...I will kill you."

"Always the Hero." Snow steps forward and Lightning feels the tip of her blade bite into the skin of her neck. Snow stumbles and Lightning can sense the magic coalescing around him. "Uh uh. Not yet, big boy. Your time is coming. But Master's talking now. I'll fillet her right now and force you to watch it. What will little Serah say when she finds out you killed her sister?"

Lightning considers her options. Animals caught in a hunter's trap have been known to chew off their own limb to escape. Should she consider doing less – sacrificing less – to buy freedom for herself and her friends?

"Do you have any idea how long I can keep her alive while I carve off pieces? I can take her apart for days and make you watch every second. Care to test me?" Barthandelus presses the blade deeper. Lightning barely feels the bite this time. Her mind is too busy to notice her body's struggles. "Now._ Stay_."

Snow stops moving and uncurls his fist.

"Good boy," Barthandelus praises. "It seems she did a better job housebreaking you than I first thought. You could have been quite something, Mr. Villiers. But you're just another disappointment. All that strength and no will to use it. If I were human, I'd have had goose bumps when you brought the Shiva sisters to heel. But you just refuse to do anything but posture and flex like the primate you are."

Snow doesn't rise to the bait, but Lightning can see it's a near thing.

Barthandelus sounds almost disappointed when he asks: "Now where was I?"

"Enough! Did you come here to talk us to death? Let's just get on with it already," Fang yells.

"Fang!" Vanille says. "We. Can't."

"Why the hell not? What are we waiting for? We all knew the deal..."

"I already told you that I'm not here to fight with you insects. Patience never was your strong suit, my dear. It seems a lesson is in order, after all."

_An example..._

Lightning feels the burn of the blade slicing through the scar on her forearm, tearing through knitted muscle and mended vessels. Her fingers go numb from severed nerves and she—

—feels gutshot at the confirmation. Dahaka was protecting Cocoon. From them. Because they are "abominations."

She didn't mean to say that last word aloud.

"Exactly, my dear. You humans," he spits the word out like it offends him, "were never meant to wield magic. You are meant to grovel in the muck with the beasts of the world."

"There are beasts that wield plenty of magic," Fang quips. Everyone stares at her and she shrugs. "Just saying."

"You are correct," the old monster declares with a satisfied sneer. Lightning can tell that Fang's observation threw him though. There's a discomfort running through him now that was not there before.

It kindles something inside her that she thought extinguished: hope.

Control is paramount for this little game. Barthandelus slips when they go off-script. If the puppet master loses control, they may have a chance.

_Shouldn't be too hard_, she thinks as another wave of queasiness swirls through her. More losses. More chunks of her break off and disappear.

She's become a bit of an expert at losing control.

"It seems that you are lower than even the beasts. Magic was never meant for you. It is the domain of your betters."

"Yeah, but that's not the whole truth," Sazh says, and Lightning notes a familiar glint in his eyes. "Isn't that right?" Barthandelus narrows his eyes and scowls. "She gave us something all our own. A weapon mightier than all your magic combined, and you just couldn't stand it."

And Lightning really should have remembered that Sazh is very savvy; there's no way he'd miss something that flustered Barthandelus. The world gets clearer for a moment, a slip in the pall.

She feels her fingers twitch and her boot scrape across pulverized crystal.

"So this all some petty jealousy thing?" Fang asks Sazh. "I'd kind of hoped for something...I don't know. Colossal. Not some temper tantrum."

Sazh shakes his head and smirks.

"Pests!" Another string of control snaps. She can feel the fal'Cie's patience unraveling like old stitching. She envisions the tiny thread and picks at it until the world fractures and the sky dims.

Taunting a fal'Cie may be foolish. Foolish may be their only chance. They are flies buzzing in his ears: he will swat them. The only question is when.

"So you've found more than I expected—"

"Damn right we did!"

"—but less than you hoped." The calm smugness returns to his voice. The fissure in the world begins to disappear. "For all the good it will do you," Barthandelus sounds amused again. No! Not amused. _Pleased._ "You see, the joke's on you."

"Why's that then?" Fang asks. Lightning wishes they'd all stop talking now. Her head hurts so much. All the colors and noises are too much for her to bear. The disjointed conversations make no sense. All she knows is pain_pain_pain.

"Well, you know you have a weapon, but you have no idea how to use it."

"And how would you know?"

Lightning knows the answer before he says it. It's déjà vu and a living nightmare. She doesn't want to hear it.

The ground shifts beneath her, and darkness falls like a curtain in a theater. She stumbles, watches the darkness rupture until everything dissolves.

She slips.

"No..." she gasps, but no one even looks at her as she disappears into the abyss.

* * *

"Cries for help are frequently inaudible."  
-Tom Robbins (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues)

* * *

TBC...

I split the chapter in half here for several reasons. First, it was just getting too long. Second, non-linear story-telling is a nightmare. Trying to keep track of the different 'realities' was getting too much for one chapter.

The Dance of the Seven Veils is often considered a dance of seduction, but I subscribe to a different interpretation wherein the seven veils represent illusions that separate us from knowledge, wisdom and understanding. The Dance of the Seven Veils is not a 'strip tease' meant to excite, but a symbol of shedding illusions to arrive at the truth. If you're interested in reading a very great story, I'll recommend Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins where the climax of the book is, in fact, The Dance of the Seven Veils by a dancer named Salome. Robbins is a very poetic, quirky and wonderful writer, but most of his work is fairly dense and heavily laced with symbolism. I recommend it to anyone interested in challenging themselves.

In this chapter, Lightning is trying to cast off the veils off illusion. It's why everything is quite disjointed for her. I don't usually like to explain my titles or my imagery, but since this one may be a bit...convoluted, I'll make an exception.

The Fearful Trip is taken from the poem "O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman.


	32. The Seven Veils Part II:

Disclaimer: The characters, etc. herein are not mine. I make no money. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

I apologize for the unannounced and unplanned hiatus. This past year has been full of things, both great and terrible. Mostly terrible. Writing takes a great deal of energy and concentration, and this story – this chapter in particular – takes more than most for me, and I just haven't had any to spare. To be fair, I still don't, but this chapter has been sitting in draft form since last October. I decided this past weekend to spend a few days working on it and posting it, whether I loved it or not.  
Here it is.

I'd like to thank my friend Chris D. for prodding me every few months to get back to writing and reminding me that I have readers that are still waiting for the next installment. I appreciate your patient tolerance while I tried to get myself to writing again.

* * *

"True stability results when presumed order and presumed disorder are balanced. A truly stable system expects the unexpected, is prepared to be disrupted, waits to be transformed."  
-Tom Robbins

The Seven Veils Part II:  
Vexed to Nightmare

She's floating on the surface, body light and far away. The darkness is damp and cloying, lapping at the corners of her mouth; it slides over her lips, slithers up her nostrils to wend its way into her body. It's inky, putrid and pungent as it splashes against her soft pallet and sloshes against her tonsils. She hacks, fights, but it works its way down…

…Down….

…Deeper into her until she's smothered. Her lungs rebel, her body seizes, and the world swirls and dances until it finds an axis it likes enough to stay for a spin.

She sputters and turns inside out, gasping and vomiting and hacking like a cat with rodent-sized fur-ball lodged in its throat. It goes on and on, oxygen playing a shell game with her until her whole body aches….

It's not the ache of a good, thorough workout. It's an exhausted, pained kind of ache. The sort that comes from overtaxing an already battle-weary body. The swirling world slows until she can rise, rub her shoulder and take in her surroundings.

The Vile Peaks are hideous as she stares at the endless piles of debris – corpses of an ancient war – and sneers at the view.

She's gone back to the beginning.

_Wrong, all wrong_, something whispers. _You don't belong here_, it says, but the voice is quiet, dizzier than she. Best to ignore it. There's no room for confusion or contemplation now; she has places to go and people to kill.

She staggers to her feet and braces herself against the nearest pile of refuse. She feels disconnected from the world, like all her plugs are in the wrong inputs; audio and video are a jumbled mess.

Everything wavers, and the world looks like film that's been double-exposed. She sees the Peaks, but she sees a white plain. She is alone, but she sees shades and shadows

_friends and family_

before the moment passes, wipes away the synesthesia and everything holds still. There's nothing but the Peaks. No movement, no people; no air but for the small, dwindling amount in her lungs.

It's like a dream until understanding crumbles.

_This is done and past. This is wrong, _her mind whispers.

She can't fight her senses and they are telling her she's in the Vile Peaks. She smells motor oil, tastes dust, sees miles of ancient, broken war-machines. There are jagged edges of twisted metal, broken glass that loom and threaten.

The Vile Peaks are disgusting – a blight on Cocoon. She can't understand why the Sanctum allowed the wreckage to remain. Perhaps they are monuments, meant to keep the people of Cocoon vigilant about the ever-present threat from Pulse.

Perhaps they are omens, meant to foretell the doom of the future.

Lightning doesn't know which, or if either, are true. It's possible that the Vile Peaks were kept for as both monuments and omens. It's possible that the rulers of Cocoon were just too lazy to remove them.

_It's possible they are meant to buttress lies._

The thought confuses her by smacking of truth. Still, it's far too abstract a concept for her rage-soaked mind. She doesn't enjoy analysis – she's a woman driven to action, not dissection.

Unless said dissection includes her blade. But here she is, thinking about philosophy, history and politics.

_Screw it._

She turns and sees Hope's wide, fearful eyes; the look causes a tightening in her chest that she chalks up to irritation, even though it smacks of deep affection.

But that makes no sense, so she releases the idea.

She forgot about him: the boy with more guts than brains, pushing and begging to trail after her on this suicide mission. She has to figure out how to ditch him. He's a liability: too young and too soft. She has no desire to be looking after some kid; and even if she'd had the inclination, she has no business playing caretaker. After all, look what happened to the last person she tried to protect.

She shoves thoughts of Serah away before they can be allowed to fester.

_Turn and run_, she wants to say. _Get away while you can. Sazh will watch over you._

Hope yells "No!" and it's a pickaxe to the eardrum. Cradling her head doesn't help, and then the floor falls away from beneath her feet. She falls and stands, spins and flails.

She's at the center of a singularity, unraveling under the force of too much time and gravity.

Her vision flickers, images of real stone mountains overlay the mountains of broken machines. Instead of dried oil, she smells dried blood. Her lips taste of iron and salt, the world goes sideways...

_/Hang on, Sis, _Serah murmurs.

"Hang on, Sis!" Snow shouts./

...and she stares at bloodstained white bandaging. There's a smart pain lurking beneath the gauze; a pain that whispers of a serious hurt. She searches her mind, remembers filthy claws sinking into soft flesh, tearing through taut muscle. The puncture hurt – oh yes! – but not nearly so much as the subsequent shredding. Flesh and muscle torn like wet tissue, blood pouring forth like a sacrifice. The pain was unreal in intensity, something that her mind denied outright, like a child might deny the permanency of death.

It's a denial born of shock; the mind's first reaction when it realizes that irreparable, irreversible harm has been perpetrated upon the body. The litany of denials runs like tickertape through the mind, pours out of the mouth in complete disconnect to thought.

_/No no no no no no no. It's all fine, you're fine. It'll be fine./_

But it's not. Nothing will ever be fine again.

Shock – she knows as her body shivers – causes all sorts of interesting side-effects. She's seen soldiers deny the severity of their wounds even as their entrails poured forth from their bodies. It was much the same with her when her arm split in two, when her foot pulverized in her boot, when her brain ruptured in her head.

_I'm good._

_No worries._

Walk it off, Soldier.

_It's all fine_.

_It's not as bad as it looks._

Lie upon lie.

She remembers the wound. It bled and she swooned. There was pain and fear, but peace and acceptance too. She stared into the abyss and waited….

…Waited…

…And waited, but she never tipped over. Sazh and Snow snatched her back, pieced her together with magic and pressure bandages and blind, stupid luck. She remembers stitching and crying, healing and dying.

Or almost dying.

Remembers the uncomfortable warmth of Snow's hand around hers; recalls a distinct disturbing shift.

She remembers the shooting star shaped scar left behind. That injury happened eons ago: a month, a lifetime, a whole other body. So why now is there blood staining the bandage again? Why is there more of it drying into the lines of her palm, tracing her life line, bisecting the love line?

Why is she here again? This is wrong.

So wrong—

—"Is another lesson required?"

The voice drags her into the present, where she is held as shield and weapon by Barthandelus. She flushes, then freezes, too confused to acknowledge the terror flowing in and around her.

_What is happening to me?_ She's lost in time, in her mind, in her memories. She has no idea what's real anymore. She has an overwhelming urge to put her weapon to her temple and squeeze the trigger.

That would offer clarity faster than any amount of deduction.

"No!" Hope shouts. "No, please." Lightning closes her eyes at the tears in the boy's eyes. At the fear in his voice. "We'll...Just...don't hurt her."

"How sweet!" Barthandelus croons. "It seems your affections are not misplaced, Claire. The boy would sacrifice himself for you, too."

/"...me too...I'll try to watch out for you, too."/

_I know._ It's a point of vast pride and anxiety. Hope looks at her, knows what she's done, sees what she's becoming, and he loves anyway. May the Maker help her, she _knows. _

From the dark joy invading her mind, she realizes that Barthandelus knows too. The six of them are each other's worst weaknesses, just as he planned it.

He alienated them, drove them from their homes, and hunted them until isolation and desperation united them. This interdependency was part of the plan all along. The focus united them, and now they're all entwined. Braided together like a rope, magic and lives woven together like a tapestry.

She thought it was their greatest strength, but now she understands that it's just one more weapon for him. That which binds them to one another is what he will use against them. He hates humanity and all its weaknesses. Love, she realizes, is the biggest weakness of them all.

She closes her eyes, feels a tear burn at the corner of her eye.

How can they win when all their best weapons are their greatest weaknesses?

"Out of the mouths of babes, they say. Do you share the child's wisdom? Or must I carve another lesson from her flesh?"

Sazh nods, eyes focused in the vicinity of Lightning's feet. She follows the gaze, sees the pooled blood. She looks away, looks at her friends for answers. Snow sways in the breeze, still suffering from his own wounding. He shudders and looks away.

Fang relaxes, lets her fingers go lax around her weapon and whispers, "Yeah, alright," like a surrender.

Lightning wants to shout at Fang. Tell her that she can't let him force them into docility. Snow and Hope won't do it, and Sazh and Vanille don't have the stomach. They've been over the realities. She, herself, is useless, twisting in some forced madness, paralyzed and broken. Fang is their only hope now. If she gives up, they're all lost.

"Just let her go," Vanille whispers and Barthandelus laughs.

"Oh, my poor dear. I'll never let her go. She is mine." He almost sounds remorseful as he seals her wound, magic burning and shivering through her.

She's dizzy with blood loss; sweaty and nauseated and the world shifts. "It is over—"

—Over. They've failed.

"Because the only one who did know how to use your weapon is dead!" Barthandelus claps his hands with glee. "You killed him! The protector of humanity, and the guardian of the secret of Ragnarok. Such a closely guarded secret. And now it's lost forever."

Lightning closes her eyes, feels the last of her hopes slide away from her. The terror consumes her, ensnares her. They're done. They came searching for answers and destroyed the source.

_/Wicked Barthandelus...Unchanging...Same are the tricks he plays on Humans/_

"So Ragnarok is lost, and will never come again."

_/Devious/_

"That is, unless I call it. And call I have. Oh yes! And I've been patient. But no more."

Something screams, distant; something flutters from within.

Ragnarok has heard the call. It comes.

It seeks.

"Time is up," he says for all to hear. The flutter twists, blossoms into an infant pain. "It's time for you—

"—time to unleash," he whispers, a secret between the two of them. "I thought you would. I expected it weeks ago. After I locked your sister in her crystal grave—

—_after your mother  
—your lover; your wife; your son; your world._

"You were so close. You were already such a honed weapon and so beautiful in your righteous fury. You charged towards Eden, ready to destroy everything in your path."

/She needs to turn Hope away. She'll destroy him like she did Serah./

"You were on the brink and I was salivating for the destruction. You almost murdered your sister's fiancé in cold blood. You abandoned your companions."

–_abandoned your love.  
—tried to murder; tried to kill; wanted to die; longed to destroy._

Lightning remembers her own fury –  
_/Snow's, Fang's anger  
Hope's, Sazh's grief  
Vanille's guilt/ _  
–a bright, burning thing, hot enough to incinerate.

"But then you went and got yourself a puppy."

The cascading whispers stop and the world coalesces.

His whole demeanor shifts as he focuses on Hope. The boy looks terrified, but stands his ground. Lightning wants to scream at him to run, to shield him from Barthandelus' attention, to do anything other than hold still and writhe.

She's trapped and hopeless. She can't protect Hope anymore, realizes that she never could. The kindest thing she could have ever done for him was to leave him behind and never lay eyes on him again.  
_/Kill him. Break his neck. One well-placed shot…/_  
Instead she dragged him along on her ill-advised trek to Eden, and he's followed her ever since.

Like a puppy. Barthandelus has it right and it opens an ache in her chest.

Hope's admiration felt good, warmed some dead part of her. She'd been wretched for so long that she'd driven her own sister from her; she didn't even want to be in her _own_ company anymore. That this boy would seek her out, fight to remain beside her was…flattering.

Oh, gods! She's as bad as the monster whispering in her ear. Worse, even.

"When was it, little Claire? When did the boy go from nuisance to surrogate? Did you think that saving him would absolve you of losing your sister? Did he fill the empty maw in your soul? Is that it?"

It is. Maker help her, it is!

"You drove her into her grave. Did you really think he would be any different?"

_No,_ she thinks.

"You restored my hope when you abandoned him in the Vile Peaks." Lightning feels shame rise like a tide within her. "You left him to die, and were happy to be rid of him."

Lightning wants to argue. She wants to deny all the claims. It would be a lie, would be pointless. She's transparent, everything of her bared to the fal'Cie's vulture gaze. She's exhausted with all the lies. She's tired of the razor edges of all her secrets slicing into her and everyone she loves. They're shards of glass beneath her skin, beneath her fingernails, caught in eyelashes. They bite and worm and each movement she makes drives them deeper into sensitive flesh, embeds them in her frayed nerves.

She left Hope behind in the Vile Peaks and was happier for it. Hope was dead weight; he held her back. His presence was both nuisance and distraction. Babysitting some green kid put a kink in her plans and a cramp in her style. She wanted nothing more than to charge into Eden and destroy everything – including herself.

Taking care of Hope was a pain in the ass. She never signed up to babysit: Not her sister, and surely not some sniveling kid! She was sick of taking care of people.

Besides, she sucked at it. Just look at her track record.

"But then something changed for you. What was it?"

But she couldn't destroy Hope. Oh, she considered it, for sure. She considered turning her own weapon on him. Cutting his throat would have been kinder than the fate that awaited him on his own in the Peaks. A bullet to the brainpan would have spared him the agony of being hunted and despised in his own home. A quick twist could have snapped the neck propped against her numbed leg. It would be over before he knew it, and she would be _free_.

She could have – perhaps should have – finished him off in those first days.

But she couldn't. His heart beat against her, strong and steady; his breath ghosted across her flesh, soft and trusting; his body pressed against hers, young and growing, and she couldn't do it. All the logical and selfish reasons howled in her head to just end him, but she couldn't.

She couldn't murder, and decided that she just couldn't bring herself to commit euthanasia. Mercy killings weren't her bag; besides, Hope followed her of his own free will. She made no secret of her plans or her path and he followed her. He wasn't her problem!

Except he was. She couldn't do it, or let it happen to him. He was young and innocent. He was hurt and orphaned. He needed protection.

"Was it when he called for his mother in his sleep?"

He reminded her of Serah: soft and smart and so, so strong.

"I was so disappointed in you."

He reminded her of herself – orphaned, lost and alone. Yearning for vengeance or justice, or just a pound of flesh, and goddamn it, she could provide it!

Revenge. Violence. Oh yes! She could deliver plenty of death to him. She could serve it on a platter and they could feast well.

"I wanted to tear him to pieces for ruining my plans; for ruining _you_. I planned to squash him like the bug he was, but didn't. I don't know why," he says, sounding mystified, like his motivations remain hidden even from himself. He shakes himself out of the stupor and grins. "No matter. I am so very glad I stayed my hand."

Hope was an anchor tethering her to the world. To life. She's never regretted her decision to save him. To shield him.

To protect him…

Until now.

"You, child, are such a small thing." Snow puts his hand on Hope's shoulder but Hope shrugs him off. Lightning can feel the magic gathering. She can sense Hope's power as surely as she can feel her own fingers and toes. He's as familiar to her now as her sister's laugh, and her father's calm; her own steady ruthlessness.

She cannot allow this monster to destroy this boy.

The bitter truth is, she cannot stop him.

"It's a marvel to me that you hold all that power. _Alexander._" Barthandelus sounds star-struck. "I've never seen any l'Cie survive Alexander's wrath. Not until you."

"Whatever!"

Barthandelus chuckles at the insolence and continues right on as if Hope never spoke. "Such enormous power in such a tiny package. It's the first time I've ever been pleasantly surprised by a mistake."

"Shut up!" Snow yells and grabs Hope's collar to yank him backwards. "Don't you talk to him!"

"Mistake?" Hope whispers as he weasels his way out from behind Snow.

"Don't listen to him, Kid."

And Snow is right, but Hope is transfixed. Barthandelus has baited the hook well, made his catch.

All that's left is to reel him in.

"Yes, of course you were a mistake. You weren't part of any plan. You, like your mother, were meant to die in the Purge."

Hope shakes his head.

"Ignore him." Lightning didn't know Vanille's could sound so strong. "He's trying to hurt you. Don't let him."

"Had she been a weaker woman, you would have perished." Lightning winces. Truth is truth, and it is painful. "Of course, had she been a stronger woman, she wouldn't be dead and you wouldn't be here right now."

"Don't you talk about my mother!" Hope's voice doesn't shake with either the rage or grief welling inside him. Lightning's heart breaks with pride.

But Barthandelus pays no heed. For him, there's only the catch, only the kill.

"Quite fortuitous actually. That she was both just strong and just weak enough. And here you are."

Hope snarls. Snow hangs onto his collar, whispers, "Easy, kid."

"Fuck easy!" Hope barks. Fang's grin turns feral at the vulgarity.

The ridiculous impulse to scold Fang wells up before being subsumed by the reality of time ticking off their final moments.

As it stands, time is gone; there's blood in the water, rats in the corn. The beast is slouching, the birds are flying, howling indignant. The behemoths are lumbering, marching toward their final rest among their ancestors.

The humans are hunting, huddling; they are murdering neighbors and sacrificing their children. They are ripe and ready for reaping.

The fal'Cie have chosen their sides, chosen against life. The shadows are long now, and soon they will paint both worlds, swallow them whole in a great gulp.

The end is upon them, and they are all that stands before the might of apocalypse. They are battered, torn, weary.

They are falling; failing.

"Your mother's death in defense of the buffoon was a happy accident, my boy. It set you on the path to destiny – to me!"

"Happy accident?" Hope rages, and Lightning can taste the bloodlust that had been dormant since Palumpolum flare to life. Hope's whole body trembles with the effort to hold still against the overwhelming horrors.

"He's baiting you, kid." Snow's voice is pleading, ragged. He's pale and shaking, stretched beyond even his vast limits, desperate to protect Hope. Lightning can see in his eyes that he knows he's going to fail. as he pleads: "Don't listen to him."

Vanille closes her eyes, and Lightning can sense the magic.  
Fang tightens her grip, adjusts her stance.  
Sazh raises his guns.

It's coming.

"She was a casualty of war," Barthandelus informs.

"Shut up!"

"A whetstone. A crucible." Lightning hears Sazh's guns cocking and hopes he can fire a bullet right into Barthandelus' big mouth. "Fodder, and nothing else."

Hope closes his eyes and holds his breath. Barthandelus chuckles and the world turns fuzzy with his joy.

"She was unintended—"

"Don't—"

"—but not unappreciated. You are...a masterpiece."

"Hope—"

"Stop talking to him!"

"Don't! It's what he wants!"

"Her death was not my plan," he repeats. He's found a tender point and he is enjoying poking it until it bleeds. "Your father, on the other hand...well, I killed him quite deliberately."

There's a moment where the whole world stops breathing. The litany of denials from her friends breaks off like the snowpack in an avalanche. The sound of stitches tearing, of fabric shredding and ripping comes from everywhere at once. It's the sound of sails wrenching from mast and boom to flail in punishing winds. A herald of disaster.

It's her sanity splitting and splintering; the veil between reality and fantasy rending.

It's the sound of Hope's jacket splitting down the back as he wrestles himself from Snow's grasp.

Hope's red-faced, eyes blazing hatred and vengeance as he charges toward her. She shakes her head and feels Barthandelus' dark joy as he prepares to attack

/an example/

when Fang body checks him, sends him sprawling and gasping like a beached fish. He tries to move but Fang plants the blunted end of her staff in the middle of his chest. "Stay down."

_As if he could move after that hit. _

Hope's fury morphs into something far uglier; he rolls onto his side, curls up on himself and weeps into the sleeve of his torn jacket. He heaves great sobs straight from his gut. They excoriate everyone, tear them from the inside out and taunt them with their impotence. They cannot protect Hope; they cannot even offer simple comfort.

Snow kneels beside him, hands hovering but never lighting, like he's afraid touching Hope might shatter him.

The next wail comes from his toes, rattles his entire body like a seizure. She feels her eyes burn in answer.

How could she have not considered Bartholomew? They left him behind without a backward glance. She spirited his son away with promises of protection and left the father to stand against an entire, terrified populace and a corrupt leadership. Of course they would have killed him. The Lightning that was – the one loyal to the Sanctum – would have executed him herself.

After all, a target's a target. Right?

"That it, then?" Fang barks, tearing Lightning from her thoughts. She is incandescent, face red, fingers bone-white where they grip her lance. She's every inch a warrior goddess, a destroyer, awful and terrible to behold.

It's easy to see how she once wiped out an entire planet. She looks ready to do it all over again.

"Making little boys cry?" Anger refracting into an array of outrage through every facet of her voice. A lesser fal'Cie – or l'cie, for that matter – would cower before her magnificence. "That's how you get your kicks?"

"One way," Barthandelus concedes. "Your fragile human emotions are a source of infinite...curiosity for me. I can never predict how any of you might react."

It's probably the first honest thing Barthandelus has said to them; or perhaps the first dishonest thing. Lightning has no problem believing that he has no idea what might cause pain. Then again, he always seems to hit exactly every exposed nerve-ending with impeccable accuracy.

"So, you just keep right on killing us until you understand. That the plan, then?"

"No." The word is decisive. "Not quite. It was a way to pass my time, isn't that right, Mr. Katzroy?" Sazh's face tightens and Fang's lip curls. Barthandelus's amusement swirls pink across Lightning's vision as he continues, "But _that_ has never been either plan nor goal. The goal is to bring the end to the cycle. Stop the wheel, as it were. And it's time—"

"— to stop playing games." The perspective shift leaves her weak and dizzy. She drops to her knees, but no one seems to notice. They are all staring at Barthandelus, large and looming despite his diminutive form, watching sneaky smiles spread across his face(s). Lightning blinks to focus her eyes and the multi-headed sphinx is gone, leaving only the benign old man.

_All wrong._

"You took a shot and missed. Be proud of yourselves. You've done more than all those before you."

"We're not done yet!" Snow declares.

"Yes, you are," the monster says with an air of finality. "You are done; _it_ is done. My amusement and patience have both come to an end. It's time to cease playing games and complete your focus."

"That's never going to happen!" Snow yells.

"Oh, but I think it is," Barthandelus replies. "I've watched you all grow into fine little l'Cie. And like any patient parent, I've let you rebel. You've all run amok and spit in the face of your creator. I've given you enough rope to hang yourselves ten times over. And hang yourselves you have! You've slaughtered your way across Gran Pulse and reached this dead land. You've exterminated the Protector and conquered the tower. You've seen everything there is to see and still you are here, in my grasp. You've failed. You've had your fun. But no more. I've come to remind you of your obligations."

"Obligations?" Vanille squeaks out.

"Your focus, my dear. It must be completed. Or if you prefer, think of it not as completing your focus, but as protecting your loved ones. You do remember them, don't you?" He pauses and a slow smile spreads across his face, smooth as warm butter. "Do I need to remind you of little Serah? Or little Dajh? Must I threaten to shatter them like so much glass if you don't do what I tell you? Will you force me to stoop so—

"—low? You threaten and hurt my son, and call yourself a leader? He's just a little boy!"

"You wound me with your accusations, Mr. Katzroy. Your son was not my doing, however entertaining that may have been." She can feel Barthandelus' amusement filter through her body. Her ears ring, and her stomach twists. Her head spins in slow, obnoxious turns.

She's not sure how much more she can take.

She's a broken puppet dancing at the end of fraying strings. One hard twist….

"Though I'm flattered by the implications of my greatness, I simply cannot be in all places at all times. Neither you nor your son were part of my plan. You both should have been purged, like the rest of the dregs. Or left at home to spend your final hours huddled together in terror of the Pulse Threat!"

Lightning feels dread creep in around the edges. There's an edge to Barthandelus' voice that has little to do with smugness or self-satisfaction. It's something to do with his plan—

Sazh shakes his head. "So you're saying that..."

—and Sazh's involvement in it.

"You have Kujuta to thank or blame for the fate of your child. He was Kujuta's pawn; a means to ferret out my l'Cie and expose my plans. One last gasp at rebellion, if you will."

"Kujuta never could accept my vision of the future. He grew soft. Too fond of humanity and the worship they heaped upon him."

"Maybe he's just not psychotic," Fang suggests.

"You said it," Snow spits.

Sazh deflates. All the rage he carries dissipates in an exhalation, and he sags to his knees. Fang steps forward in a vain effort to shield him from further hurt. She doesn't bother to try and draw him from the ground.

Barthandelus has broken Sazh, and now he will finish him off. A coup de grace might be merciful, but Lightning isn't willing to watch Sazh give up and die, or worse, turn.

_Become. _The oily whisper slinks in, sweeps through, renders her unclean. Sazh shivers, shudders and she understands that she's heard only an echo.

She fights her bonds to distract Barthandelus and shut him up. She needs to get to Sazh, to shake him from his misery before he drowns in the muck. Her efforts seem to amuse more than annoy, and Barthandelus wrenches her harder, twists her until she squawks.

"I am quite sorry." He twists the knife: "Your son was collateral damage. As was your wife."

"My wife?"

"That's it!" Fang charges him, and Lightning moves without thought; Fang's blade clangs, sparks, rebounds, and both of them stare stunned at the Edged Carbine held aloft between them.

"Get out of my way, Sunshine."

Oh, but she wants to. She tries to lower the weapon but her body doesn't respond to her command. It readjusts to a defensive posture and pauses, challenging. There's a sound like low static in her head, tingling along her skin, raising the fine hairs of her body. There's a bare tremor in her muscles, invisible, winding her ever tighter.

Potential energy gathering, making her all the more deadly when it finally unleashes.

Fang grits her teeth. "Fine. Hard way it is, then." With that, she strikes.

Lightning moves faster than she thought possible considering the dizziness and pain. She's suffocating under the weight of the control, but her body moves like the perfect weapon it is. Her muscles tremble with the effort of striking a balance between reining herself in enough not to kill, and letting loose enough not to die.

It's not Fang's time yet. Not Lightning's time, either.

Through it all, Barthandelus drones on, never losing his grip on her dance; continues spreading poison with truths no one wants to hear.

Picking off scabs and prodding at the bleeding wounds beneath until everything oozes and putrifies.

"You have little Claire to thank for the death of your poor wife. Had she just stayed put that day in the hospital, your wife and she never would have crossed paths."

Lightning remembers her. The kind, beautiful lady

_/Are you alright, child?/_

and she clenches up, misses a step. Fang's blow connects, sends her tumbling with a stifled shout.

Huh. She still bleeds crimson despite the dark malevolence spreading through her like cancer. It's incongruous.

Her blood feels inky. Foul.

Tainted.

"No!" Someone yells, and she looks up into Fang's horrified eyes.

Another voice barks out a harsh: "Are you crazy?"

First blood seems to have deflated Fang's commitment to her task. Lightning rises, undaunted, and readies herself.

The tightness inside and around her eases, and Lightning reaches for her body again. Her fingers brush against something resembling control. The fog in her brain recedes almost enough to get a clear look at her friends.

"But you mustn't blame Claire. She had just received such a nasty little shock, the poor dear. And really, it isn't _her_ fault that you humans are such frail, inelegant creatures. Susceptible to the most insignificant pathogens. And little Claire – all grief-stricken and despondent at the loss of her parents – carelessly carried the deadliest of all right out of the hospital that day." Barthandelus' face flickers before her, then disappears from view again.

His grip on her body is gone – or perhaps it was never there – but she's still just as trapped. Now she's caught in Sazh's gaze, anger and grief blaze out of him with a ferocity she's never seen.

_Sazh..._

_/I'd hate to think of my baby left all alone./_

"You must understand: that was never part of my plan. That little nasty was custom designed to kill two humans and then die off."

_/Did you run away?/_

"But they are...unpredictable at times, no? A single cell that can destroy an entire complex organism. They're quite remarkable. Humans on the other hand? I will simply never understand what she saw in you." There's a long pause. "But viruses I can respect. They don't piss around and whine, and talk about their feelings. I don't have to hear about their young. They don't flout and cry and stink everything up, and puke their insecurities all over everyone in range. They just do their jobs. Simply. Efficiently."

_I didn't..._

_I'm sorry..._

"Collateral damage," Sazh whispers, like he can't decide if he's disgusted or horrified by the designation. To have your whole life – everything you love – destroyed, and find out that it was just a big mistake of fate is beyond anything Lightning can comprehend.

Barthandelus chose to take her life apart brick by brick, but Sazh? His life was destroyed by proxy. Everything he loved and everything he was, was taken from him by somehow entering her orbit one too many times.

It's unbearable.

"I'm sorry to say it, Mr. Katzroy, especially after you've just received such terrible news..." and he doesn't sound sorry at all, "but, you are the new fly in my ointment." Vanille puts her hand on Sazh's slumped shoulder as Fang inches closer. "I just don't understand why you're here or how you've survived this long. You're weak, you see. My little Claire should have abandoned you on The Hanging Edge. Vanille should have killed you in Nautilus; and after your son changed, well, I half-expected you to end yourself!"

"Jihl was supposed to ensure that you were removed. She failed me." Lightning remembers the look of shock on Jihl's face as Barthandelus – then Primarch Dysley – delivered her a deathblow. Lightning couldn't drum up any sympathy for her then, but she might feel a tinge now. Loyalty rewarded with betrayal hits an all too discordant note within her now.

"I would chalk it up to coincidence, but three times is a pattern. Your wife, your son and you make three. So, it's not a coincidence, and I don't believe you humans are important enough to merit any sort of fate. At least not one that I don't spoon feed you, and etch into that pitiful flesh of yours, so I can only deduce that your life has been...manipulated by one of my enemies – one of the traitorous few who refuse to accept the future I'm crafting. So, I hope you understand why I simply cannot allow you to continue on this journey."

Lightning can't stop staring at the broken look in Sazh's eyes. She yearns to reach out and offer comfort. This stalwart, steadfast man who has become a part of her family. This man who saved her arm as she bled out; who whispered about his dead wife – the wife she killed! – while she lay dying in a forest of Gran Pulse. Sazh – who saved her ass more times than she can count, and made her laugh even more often! This man, with his gentle wisdom and quiet strength.

This man, whose life she has destroyed.

_I'm so sorry. _

Fang breaks the staring contest by stepping between them, blood dripping from the tip of her Bladed Lance. Lightning can no longer see Sazh's devastation; Fang's righteous fury is her entire universe now.

"You want him? You'll have to come through me."

_Become. _The voice slithers like snakes in her ears, through her head, worms its way beneath her skin.

"You've had your fun. Let's get on with this."

_Become. _It's louder and closer. Burning the pathways of neurons.

"It's time to stop hiding—"

_Become. _Like hell hounds biting at her heels. Like death breathing on her neck.

"—and to fight properly."

_Give in. Become._

"Fang—"

"Stow it, Hero. I'm ending this. Now!" She punctuates it with a twirl of her weapon.

"Don't—"

"I'm keeping a promise to a lady," Fang interrupts.

Lightning feels her own grip tighten around the hilt of her weapon. Sunlight glints off the keen edge of her blade as it's lifted.

_It's time. Kill her. _

She moves without thought or will and attacks. There's a clang of metal on metal, and a curl of Fang's lip. Fang is strong, but Lightning's fast. Fang has fury, but Lightning has madness.

_Become._

She ducks a half-hearted swipe of the Bladed Lance, returns one of her own at Fang's belly, and follows up with a jab for her ribs. Fang back flips, grits her teeth and thrusts the blunted end of her weapon into Lightning's sternum. The hit steals Lightning's breath, and with it, a good portion of her remaining restraint.

_Gut her. Bathe in her blood, spread her entrails across the ground. _

"Stop it!" Hope shouts, and her ears pop with the buildup of magic in the atmosphere. Whatever spell the kid's about to cast is going to be a doozy.

_She's earned her death, sowed it into the fallow ground of Pulse. Granted it to hundreds_thousands_**millions.**_

Lightning whips her Edged Carbine and slices a score into Fang's cheek. The blood spatters over her arms, over the ground.

_Finish it._

There's a wrenching in her gut that almost drives her to her knees.

_Finish _her!

She recovers enough to block the next blow, sees the sparks fly on the next strike where the two blades catch and hold.

Her mind gets fuzzier and her body gets faster. She rains blows down on Fang until one connects and she opens a deep furrow across Fang's thigh.

The horror is a yawning chasm beneath her.

"You're a coward, you know that?" It's not really a question, and Lightning doesn't understand the context anyway. "All you fal'Cie are, in the end. Think you're gods, but you're just as lost as we are."

Fang twirls her weapon and leaps. The concussive force sends Lightning sprawling across the gravel. Skin abrades and bleeds, pieces of crystal embed to prickle and sting. The pain brings her back to herself enough to uncurl her fingers from the hilt of her weapon and concede.

She feels power filter through her, flare her brand, and she chokes and rolls to avoid the next blow—

The Tyrant bears down on them, the Centaurion Blade hovering and dancing in mid-air like a polynose in an autumn breeze. The darkness is a physical weight pressing down on her body and mind. All she can see is Fang bleeding on the ground, fighting for her life. All she knows is Snow and Hope are counting on her.

She refuses to fail any of them. They need the whole group to survive this mess. If one of them falls, the rest will follow.

She lets her need flow through her and Odin arrives. Its presence is ominous and terrible, and something in her recoils like it hasn't done since the first arrival.

She swallows down the foreign feeling. _Cut us a path!_

Odin stands tall and mute. Hesitant.

Confused.

She mirrors its confusion with her own, watches as the Tyrant turns towards her.

It wears Odin's face.

_Wait. What?_

She shakes her head, watches as her Eidolon lifts Zantetsuken. She gets her Edged Carbine up in time to block the blow, but she isn't prepared. The back of her weapon strikes her head, splits it open and sends blood sheeting into her eyes.

Odin doesn't recognize her.

Or perhaps she's unrecognizable now. There's pressure building behind her eyes and in her ears. Any moment now, the entire top of her head will blow off, explode in a pyroclastic cloud.

_Become! Accept and Odin will bow before your might. The whole of both worlds will bow before the will of Ragnarok!_

She feels something shift inside her, and it translates to her world. No longer is she in the caverns of Mah'Habara. Gone are the endless miles dark, damp stone, replaced by the over-bright outskirts of Oerba.

Sunlight reflects off crystal to create too much blinding reflected light. Her eyes water. She closes them too late.

The image is burned into her retinas, tattooed on her brain.

Fang's blood is on her weapon, and Snow's blood stains the ground from her bullet. Sazh's wife is dead by her hand, and her parents were murdered for her benefit.

Her sister is gone because of her anger and weakness.

Hope's father died for her carelessness.

She _will_ kill them all. Everyone. Not just her friends, but the entirety of humanity. It's a weighted certainty in her gut.

If given the opportunity, she will destroy Cocoon and all its citizens. She's a destroyer – just like her namesake. She always knew it and once-upon-a-time, the knowledge drove her onward. It was her impetus and pride.

It's what Barthandelus saw in her, what attracted his awful attentions. She's always been a monster, just never quite so plainly.

Being a destroyer was her strength; now, it's her damnation.

She cannot allow it, not so long as there's a single spark of herself inside the monster she's become.

She opens her eyes to see the majesty of Odin's sword and she lets her arms drop. Perhaps she even offers her neck. She closes her eyes —

_Sorry, Serah._

A small voice answers: 'No, Sis.'

—Something snatches her backwards and away. The very tip of Odin's blade slices a furrow into her chest – bisects her brand – and there's an explosion like dynamite behind her eyes.

"Why do you continue to resist? You stupid, weak girl! Ingrate!" She feels blows raining on her body, magic burning and freezing and electrocuting at once. Something smells of overcooked meat, then burned hair mixes into the stench. She moans through her raw throat. "I gave you everything you wanted! I unshackled you, made you mighty! Offered you the chance to realize your greatest and truest destiny!"

Her body spasms, contracts with the agony of too much magic racing through her venous system. Her heart pounds, hiccups, runs itself to death in her breast.

"I gave you everything, and you repay me with rebellion?" He yanks on her hair hard enough to tear her scalp. The hurt is small in the wake of such utter ruination of flesh. She latches onto it as a means of hanging onto consciousness.

"If it is your wish to become a twisted monster, then I shall grant it you!"

Something pops in her head and sends a tide of blood cascading from her nose. It comes too fast, backs up, and leaks down her throat and out of her mouth. She can't breathe around it, can't swallow fast enough to clear her airway. She gasps, aspirates blood and chokes. Drowns.

Her lungs wrench, attempting to draw in air.

Another breath pulls ever more blood into her lungs.

Her joints unhinge. She gags, pukes, feels her stomach creep further up her throat. She turns inside out.

She drops to the ground, pulverized crystal slips into her nail beds and tears apart her cuticles.

"Lightning?"

She gasps, but the pain only gets sharper.

"Sis?"

She blinks, but her vision shrinks further.

"Come on, Soldier. Not now. Not like this!"

The world spins as she bleeds and bleeds; she gives up the struggle for consciousness. Her elbows unlock and she faceplants into the bloody crystal...

...and all is silence.

* * *

TBC... (hopefully much sooner.)

I know it's a confusing chapter. The next one will be told in a more traditional manner, and should clear up any confusion about the format in the past two chapters.  
I also know there's a lot of talking here. No matter how I tweaked it, it felt like a bit exposition dump, but the questions needed answering and Barthandelus is the one with the answers. Barthandelus, I admit, is a bit of a blowhard, but he's also the puppeteer holding all the strings.


	33. Interlude IV: From Within You It Devours

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy XIII, or make claims to anything except the original story concepts presented herein.

A/N. I'm not dead, though many of you may have wished I were for leaving you hanging for so long. Also, this is much shorter than intended, especially after such a long hiatus. The reasoning is simple: the chapter ended naturally and no amount of coaxing the second half made it fit. The two halves are different in content, narrative flow, etc. I couldn't make it work. I am, however, 11 pages into the second part. No promises, but I will try to get it up forthwith.

* * *

"Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."  
― Lewis Carroll, _Alice in Wonderland_

Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.

-Marcus Aurelius

_**Interlude IV  
Fimbulvetr I**__ :  
From Within You, It Devours_

_It's gradual when it begins. Lulling. It's a tickle, an itch. It's maggots squirming. It's bugs scrambling, creeping; it's legs like filaments skittering across flesh landscapes. _

_They are few at first, and she brushes them away with careless, dismissive fingers._

_They are Hydra; they are legion. The invasion is absolute, the battle lost before it begins. They flee from her questing hands, scurry up her nose, nest in her ears, burrow under her skin. Dozens – hundreds! – of them, infecting, infesting her. Mindless sweeps of fingers grow frantic and clutching. Fingernails hook into flesh, gouging, tearing until clots of blood and meat grow sticky and bulky beneath her nails. _

_Still she fails; still they advance._

_She ignores the agony and carves out furrows, peels away ribbons of herself in futile pursuit. With jagged nails she chases after the chewing, clawing creatures, always a step behind them on their trek through her muscles and sinew towards the safe hollow of her bones._

_She scratches and screams around a throat full of maggots._

_She blinks, exhales and stills. She stands at a brink, overlooks the cataclysm. The Behemoths lumber towards the boneyard, striding, striving towards their rest. Envy for a destination – a goal, an end – washes over her and she __drowns in the undertow._

_She turns away, turns the page. It's not her end, her time. Her heart still beats, and the clock ticks away. It runs, as she runs..._

_She's running, seeking something unremembered. _

_She chases herself in circles, finds only more road. Hers is a millennia-old journey down well-worn trails. It's catwalks and bridges and a continuous, disembodied scream. She's a lab rat and every turn leads to electrical shock or dead end; she's a goldfish, ever-surprised by the treasure chest in her tiny bowl. _

_The bugs niggle and worm their way through her, but they no longer matter. She knows now that always have they been there. Will always be there._

_Gnawing._

_Devouring._

_They are part of the whole of herself, and she can no more remove them than amputate her head._

_She ignores them for the matter at hand. She's got places to go, people to kill. Time ticks away._

_Tick—_

_—Marches to footsteps and heartbeats._

_Tock._

_Metronomic monotony._

_Tick—_

_Hope's frantic footfalls follow her, but she dismisses them and him. He is a pest; he holds her back, makes her weak. He is the bugs beneath her skin, consuming her foundations to leave her skeletal in the onslaught._

_She should have left him, killed him, let the curse claim him. _

_A shout from behind her snags her attention, draws her gaze from the path. Gone is the puppy trailing her. In his place stands a miniature Cie'th, ridiculous in its short pants and yellow jacket, gray, crystal-crusted skin a terrible clash to the stylish clothing. _

_It lurches, and stumbles over its own over-sized feet._

_The chasm yawns, and she ignores it. The abyss beneath her is of no concern, even as it slavers and drools. _

_She huffs, wraps bloodied fingers around her hipbones and taps her foot._

_"Hurry up!" _

_The Cie'th lumbers over, swipes at her with a clubbed limb. She tuts at the monster, looks it up and down as it gives up its attack, puts its head in grotesque hands and weeps. She turns from the sight, unable or unwilling to watch. _

_The Behemoths look as supplicants as they ease into their final rest. Face-first, they kiss the ground upon which their ancestors last walked. _

_Reverent. _

_Something is wrong; something's missing. There's a hole inside her, invisible, gaping. She feels the lack, knows it's there. _

_It's impossible to prove a negative. What's gone is gone, and she'll never miss it anyway. You can no more find what's forgotten than reclaim lost time. The search for forgotten memories is fruitless, the path a route to madness._

_Time and memory are both irrelevant; acceptable losses._

_The past can't matter in the face of the now, and now she faces a monster in boy's clothing. The picture shakes her foundations, rocks her core. Something inside her shrivels in the face of yet another broken promise._

_She is stone. She is a soldier, a warrior, unbending. She looks the once-boy up and down, notes the fashionable footwear torn through by gruesome feet. And here she cracks. Hadn't they had this conversation already? _

_"I told you to take care of your feet, Hope. We'll never get anywhere if you can't walk."_

_"Sorry," he whispers. The monster stares at her with the boy's green eyes, some strange cocktail of unidentifiable emotion percolating there. "I never wanted to be a burden." She hates the feeling of his gaze on her; like a nutcracker it squeezes at her, exposes all her tenderest parts. The urge to pluck those eyes from their sockets almost overwhelms her. "I just wanted your attention."_

_"Yeah, well, you've had it." She looks at the ever-lengthening path. Her eyes burn even as they roll. "Too much of it, to be honest. I have important things to do, and instead I've been changing your diapers!" _

_She stares at the endless miles of catwalk and road._

_They are back at the beginning. Somehow, when she wasn't looking, the world shifted out from beneath her and all her progress vanished. The entirety of the Vestige, the Peaks, the Gapra Whitewood stand before her. _

_The Behemoths have reached their end while she and her progress were unmade._

_Everything is pointless. She's lost, and losing more of herself with each breath, but she cannot deal with intangibles. Instead, she focuses on the long, hard road ahead._

_She throws her hands up in the air and grunts out: "See? Now we have to start all over!"_

_But the boy is gone. She's alone in the darkening woods. It's as she always wanted, except there's no burgeoning triumph swirled in with the pain. _

_There's only emptiness._

_She listens to the sounds of bugs chewing, watches the Behemoths die. _

_"I should save them," she whispers to no one. _

_She is hollow._

_And she's running the catwalks again, deep within Mah'Habara, tunnels and catwalks and endless darkness. Her sense of time and direction disappear into the abyss, yet something draws her forward. _

_Purpose and will. If she were anyone else, she'd call it Fate._

_But she is Lightning and her fate is her own; she's forged it from flesh and bone, and life and death, with gun and blade. She doesn't believe in divinity or grace, and hasn't for long years. _

_The bugs are still creeping along her bones, gnawing away flesh and nerve. Creating, nesting in negative space. _

_Pretending that they aren't squatters; acting like they _own_ the place!_

Then again_, she thinks,_ perhaps they do_. She hasn't been alone in her own skin for monthsyearscenturies. There's always been something unsettled within her. Something dark and alien:_

Once upon a time there was a little girl_, she thinks.  
_But the little girl lost her way.  
Or perhaps she was really led astray.  
Either way, the young girl died,  
and something else crawled deep inside.  
It wore the girl just like a dress,  
and with her hands, it made a mess.  
It killed, it stabbed, it stomped and screamed,  
and murdered all the young girl's dreams.  
It changed her name to hide its face,  
and in her life it made its place.

_So she knows that she's always been an imposter, but now she thinks that perhaps she was just a vessel all along. That the creature that crawled inside the dead girl all those years ago was just an opportunistic squatter. _

_A placeholder._

_And the bugs are laughing and chattering inside her ears, mocking her from the confines of her throat. _We know the way_, they giggle. _We do! But we'll never tell. Tick tock goes the clock! _The urge to slip her blade into the hollow places and dig them out – to filet and carve until they are as ruined as she – rises up from her churning gut. She examines the curve of the blade— _

_"You're going the wrong way, Sis." She huffs and abandons her examination of the blade. "You're going to burn if you go that way. You should follow the Behemoths. They remember the path."_

_"How would you know that?" she snipes as she turns toward the (un)welcome voice._

_Snow's bloody and bleeding, impaled on a rock as thick as her thigh. His pinned to the ground like a bug, grunting and gasping. It's beautiful and horrible, and she wants to etch the image into her mind; wants to taste and touch and experience his pain, even as something cringes and recoils within her. She kneels beside him, entranced, and says, " And I'm not your sister."_

_"I know it." More blood oozes from his mouth. She bends and sniffs it, licks her lips. "I've always known," he wheezes. "But we've had fun pretending, haven't we?"_

_Bony fingers chase the blood as it runs down his face, swipe through it. She ghosts them over her lips, slides them, one-by-one, between. _

_"Pretending is all we ever do," she answers. Her fingernails pick a furrow into the flesh at her wrist, catch on, disappear beneath it. The skin of her forearm peels up like that of a roasted bird, all easy going, until it catches at her elbow and tears with a slurp. She dangles her bloody prize over him, watches it wriggle for a long moment, before casting the flesh aside. She presents to him the gray skin in the wound as she might an unwrapped gift. "See?"_

_She stares into the blood spatter on his face as if it might yield knowledge of the future. She sees only death in the pattern and nods once._

_"Yeah," he says, disinterested. Unimpressed. She sits back on her heels with a huff, and lifts the knife._

_For my next trick…_

_" I've got some of my own, you know," Snow says, interrupting her violent musings._

_"Really?" How intriguing! The idea alone is buoying. She's tired of being alone._

_She's always been alone. Ever since forever. _

_If you're alone when the music stops, everything goes cold, dark and washed in terror._

_"Yep. But mine's all inside." He points to the rock in his gut. "Underneath."_

_She stares into the hole in his gut, eyeing the grinning abyss. There is another universe through that hole. She's sure of it. If she could just climb down and go through the hole in the world, everything would be alright._

_She thinks of the Behemoths, and considers tearing her way inside. _

_Tick._

_"It's all dead underneath," Snow says._

_Tock._

_"I can fix that." _

_"I know you can. You have to fix it, Sis."_

_She brandishes her knife and licks the keen edge. Blood wells on her tongue and drips onto his smiling mouth. She smears it with a finger, paints designs on his face. Replaces the foretelling of death with patterns of lilies. _

_"I can make it so we match."_

_Snow laughs as she slips the blade between the flesh and muscle of his cheek and _rips.

_And she's running the catwalks in the Ark, running away from things instead of toward them. She can feel the hot breath on her neck, smell the rot that surrounds the monster like a wall. It's gaining on her, she knows. Taking two steps for each one of her own. It's closing in fast._

_It's almost here. _

_And the bugs are chewing through her, gnawing away, tearing through marrow and sinew. Soon she'll be an empty husk; a chrysalis._

_Relief and fear are full partners._

_"Poor lost Soldier," a familiar voice mocks. "You don't look too good, you know. Feeling off, are you? Probably should have listened to this old man."_

_She spins, finds Sazh standing with his guns drawn._

_"He's got some tricks up his sleeves yet."_

_He has her in his sights. One well-placed shot could end it all._

_Tick._

_Something like hope creeps into the hollows within._

_Tock._

_"Sazh," she says, just to say something. She watches a roach worm its way out of his ear, slither across his cheek and wriggle back into his mouth. She shivers and scratches at her own itch. "How're you doing?"_

_"Better than you," and it's a flagrant lie. She doesn't call him on it. _

_They're all fading, vanishing._

_Devolving._

_Like clay, they're reshaped, each one twisted and hollowed._

_"All this running and killing and you still can't make your way to her. All you've ever wanted, for what?" Lightning shrugs, turns her palms up in acquiescence to his point. "You're just running in circles, you know. The answers are right in front of you but you won't see them. That's why you're still gonna fail." He just sounds so pleased at the notion. "You were always going to fail."_

_She rolls her eyes. _Tell me something I don't know!

_"Can you help? Or are you just going to blather on about things you don't understand." She scratches at her leg with the tip of her Edged Carbine, watches the skin flake off like tree bark. Black blood wells up in its wake. She dips her finger into the gore, sniffs at it and rubs it on her gums for luck. _

_It's bitter, turns rancid on her tongue._

_"Oh, I understand alright, Soldier." He smirks, and something incomprehensible flickers in his eyes. Like a tiny cloud passing over the sun, it's gone almost before she sees it, and yet every hair on her body stands on end. "I see everything, and it's all dead beneath."_

_The Behemoth sighs as it reaches the center of the graveyard. It's a sound of heartbreak and solace, and finally, finally, finally, coming home._

_"What do you want to know?"_

_"Everything. Nothing. I'm not sure where to go."_

_"If you ask me, doesn't much matter where you go anymore." His smile is dark and bloody before his tongue wipes away the gore. She has the crazy urge to taste the edges of his grin, lick the words and answers from the ruins of his mouth. _

_Her tongue flickers over her lips in anticipation._

_"No matter where you go, there _you_ are," Sazh says and points his gun at her. He squeezes the trigger. She flinches as dust puffs from the muzzle. "And that's never a good thing, Soldier. You're Ruination incarnate."_

_She smiles as humid breath gusts over her neck, stirs her hair. Leathery hide scrapes her skin; strong arms wind around her. It's so comfortable. Familiar._

_"You're going to tear it all apart."_

_Now that it's caught up to her, she isn't sure why she bothered running at all. _

_The Behemoths march in ever-shrinking circles, moaning and stamping the ground._

_"True," she says, and leans back into the waiting arms. "But that's neither here nor there. I need to find the way out. It's important."_

_"Well, don't turn around, Soldier," Sazh warns. "Keep on moving forward. If you look back, all is lost." _

_Tick._

_"If you look back, you'll burn."_

_Tock._

_It's pointless advice. She can feel the monster's heartbeat now where it presses against her back. The steady thud beats in time with her own heart, its breath a rattle against her spine, its sweat oozing into her pores where her own seeps out. They're almost one. _

_She can feel the bugs tunneling their way back to the surface, making their way toward the monster, creating a breach in her defenses. Opening a chasm._

_And then?_

_Then she will be gone; nothing more than a meat-marionette._

_It's all a matter of time tick – tick – ticking away to the tempo of her tapping toes, and the rhythm of drumming fingernails; disappearing like her tooth enamel under the incessant grate and grind of stress clenching._

_"Well, if you don't have anything useful to tell me—" she starts, and completes the sentence with a quick beheading. The wet slurp of rending flesh is almost satisfying. Sazh's head rolls away, chuckling and grumbling as it goes. The chicobo lets out an indignant 'WARK!' as it scampers away. Blood coats her hands, trails hot up her forearms to pool at her elbows in fat droplets. She smears her cheeks, brushes her lips: paints her face with her kill._

_She feels more like herself, so adorned._

_Sazh whistles once and she preens at the compliment. She almost regrets her actions until Sazh's head whispers, "Now you look better. Like yourself. I barely recognized you before."_

_She smiles, throws a pleased look at Sazh before—_

_She's running, exhausted, panting for breath. The weight on her back is growing and she feels empty where once she was full. The lack is more obvious for all she can't comprehend it. It's an emptiness with no name, no identity. Something is working at her, chewing holes in the fabric of her being, leaving her tattered and insubstantial._

_She should care about that. Of course, that vital part must be long since digested, so it's well-gone._

_Can't care without a soul, after all._

_"You need to hurry up, Light," Vanille says. "We're going to be late to the party!"_

_"Party?" Lightning asks. She looks down at the tapestry of herself. Her patchwork skin is bloodied and ruined: pasty and gray and black and red._

_She's not dressed for a party._

_"Don't tell me you forgot!" Vanille exclaims and waves a hand around. "And here I invited all our friends."_

_Said friends are ringed around them, closing in with deliberate, loping stomps. __They are gray and crystal, full of anger and strict purpose. _

_"They don't look in a party sort of mood," she says. __Not to mention that they are not dressed right either. _

_Vanille only beams and waves at them._

_The Cie'th are approaching, trudging over crystal stained red and black. Hope, Sazh and Snow are all motionless, gutted, bleeding on the ground._

_"What happened?" Lightning asks. _

_"Huh? Oh, them? They didn't want to come to the party. So I had to let them go."_

_Lightning nods her acceptance and turns to face the guests._

_She's almost there and they're almost here. The Behemoths are marching, running. They sense the end and are searching for the path home._

_Tick._

_"Vanille?"_

_Tock._

_A Cie'th attacks and she dodges, parries. _

_Tick._

_Vanille lifts her weapon to cast a spell,_

_Tock_

_but she holds only a blue flower._

_"Oh! Isn't it pretty, Light! I thought they were all gone," she babbles, sniffing the petals. Vanille plucks them one by one whispering, "she kills me; she kills me not," with each before devouring the amputated petal._

_"Vanille," Lightning snaps and takes out another Cie'th. The monster belches out an annoyed harrumph – a sound which conveys offense rather than terror or relief – before it explodes into an amalgam of crystal and confetti. Vanille catches a fluttering piece of monster in her open mouth, as if she were trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue rather than pieces of dismembered corpse. "I think we should focus here."_

_"Focus? Oh, right! We should do that," Vanille says and looks up at Cocoon. "But first, it's time for the party. I haven't seen my friends in years. I wonder if they'll recognize me. Do you like my dress?"_

_She twirls around once and opens a vortex that pulls at Lightning's guts, sucks at her shell. She can feel pieces of herself flying off, drawn into the void._

_Chunks of her swirl around, caught in the maelstrom of Vanille's Death spell. She snatches at them, tries to stick them back like mismatched puzzle pieces. But for every one she grabs, three more are torn away to be swallowed into the nothingness._

_"Stop! I can't lose anymore pieces. There's not going to be enough left to make it to the end!"_

_"Silly girl!" Vanille giggles and stops twirling. All the vitality that she once had is gone. She's gray and old, her youth and life stolen between one moment and the next. Her skin hangs from her bones like stretched-out, wet wool. Her eyes are shining black, sclera and pupil blended into thick onyx. "Don't you understand yet? You're already at the end. You've been here since the start."_

_"But—"_

_And she's running over catwalks and stones, meadows and rubble. The crystal and bones crunch beneath her boots. She's murdered her way through Cocoon, slaughtered and bled her way across Gran Pulse, carved away chunk after chunk of herself in sacrifice, and still she's lost._

_"You're not," Fang promises as she steps out of nowhere. Her Bladed Lance is two stories high and Lightning wonders if it was always that big. Figures it must have been; Fang isn't one for subtlety, after all. Lightning stops running and feels the bugs chew their way to her chest. They devour her heart lickity-split in the biggest anti-climax ever, and move downward from there. "Not really. You're almost there now."_

_"Where am I going?" Her abdomen swells and writhes. She pushes against it to contain what lies beneath. Nothing good can come out of her._

_"Vanille said I was here. At the end."_

_/No matter where you go, there _you_ are/_

_"You are," Fang huffs, like Lightning is an exceptionally dim child. She points to the ground, to a well-worn footpath. " Just follow the path."_

_Those footprints weren't there before. Lightning is sure. _

_Except they have always been before her. The Behemoths have trod this way for centuries in search for divinity, and she's been walking this path since her parents died. Walking in someone else's shoes; living in someone else's skin._

_Taking up someone else's mantle. Fighting someone else's war._

_"You've already found the way out," Lightning accuses. She's not certain why she's angry – there are too many reasons to count and weigh. She just knows that she is._

_"Yes and no," Fang says. "I've blazed the trail, but I haven't escaped." She points to her brand as proof. "None of us ever escape. The wheel turns, the cycle continues, and there's not a damn thing to be done for it." _

_"This is your fault, you know." It's unkind, but Lightning doesn't care. Truth is often harsh._

_"Yep. Told you that back at the beginning, didn't I?" Fang's fingers trace the shadowed edges of a bruise long faded._

_"You did and didn't."_

_"And yet you're still here, Sunshine," Fang says. She points to the ground again. "Walk the path. You're almost there. Hurry up, or it'll be too late. It'll all be gone. As above, so below."_

_"If you hadn't failed, I wouldn't have to do this," Lightning says as she fits her feet into the marks before her. The footprints are too large, and the toe prints look like crystal halos around the tips of her boots. "Serah would still be alive. I wouldn't be a monster."_

_Fang laughs at that one, bares her teeth. Something shifts below the surface of pale skin: a shadow, a flutter. Lightning shivers._

_"Oh, Claire," Not-Fang whispers, "haven't you figured it out yet?"_

_Not-Fang moves before Lightning can think, Bladed Lance whipping and slicing across her abdomen. The bugs erupt and swarm, engulf her body in seconds. She spasms under the onslaught, freezes in her impotence._

_Then it _hurts_. It's boiling, cascading, tearing along a billion raw nerve-endings._

_It's every pain she's ever felt at once, until there's too much input for her disappearing mind to process._

_Not-Fang reappears behind her, leathery skin catching on the open sores; claw-tipped fingers skim over her brand, ripping bloody furrows through the open eye of it. Humid breath gushes over the open wound of Lightning's throat as Fang whispers: "Don't you understand that you've always been a monster?" _

_She opens her mouth in denial, but all that's left within her are the bugs._

_"I just helped you achieve greatness," Barthandelus whispers as he shoves her empty skin through the door._

"Welcome to the world, Claire."

* * *

Notes:  
Title- Fibulvetre is from Norse Mythology, and it is the great winter which precedes Ragnarok. Subtitle is an adaptation of "From beneath you, it devours" from Season 7 _Buffy The Vampire Slayer._

'As above, so below' - These words are pretty ubiquitous in occult texts, mostly Hermetic texts.

So why the notes? I've been doing a lot of reading about plagiarism, and I want to be very clear about only taking credit for that which is strictly mine. The content is all mine, though influence rises from many places. Keep the lines clear, people. They're not hard to see when you're on the correct side of them.  
-L


End file.
